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Ukrainian experts have revealed that a Russian Oreshnik missile, fired at Ukraine in January, appears to have been manufactured nine years ago using components exclusively from Russia and Belarus. This discovery comes from the examination of missile fragments that Russia touts as revolutionary.
First deployed by Russia against Ukraine in 2024, the Oreshnik is a nuclear-capable missile boasting a range exceeding 3,100 miles.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed that the Oreshnik is immune to interception, although many Western analysts have expressed skepticism about this claim.
By recovering debris from the limited number of Oreshnik missiles used by Russia in its conflict with Ukraine, Kyiv has been able to gain insights into the weapon and challenge some of the surrounding narratives.
Ukrainian officials believe the Oreshnik is an upgraded version of the RS-26 Rubezh missile, which was first successfully tested in 2012.
At a presentation of electronics recovered from Russian missiles and drones, a Ukrainian missile forensics expert said on Friday that the Oreshnik recovered in January had been assembled in 2017 from components dating to 2016 or earlier, all of them made in Russia or its ally Belarus.
“We were rather surprised, because they say that this is a very new missile, but if you look at the year of assembly, it says 2017,” said the expert, who identified himself only as Petro for security reasons.
AT LEAST THREE STRIKES
Russia has struck Ukrainian territory with the Oreshnik at least three times during the war, including a town near Kyiv during a heavy air assault on May 24.
Vladyslav Vlasiuk, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s sanctions adviser, said the surviving electronics were recovered from an Oreshnik that hit the western city of Lviv in January. Vlasiuk said the missile debris from the latest Oreshnik strike this month was still being studied.
He also said that Ukrainian investigators were observing a greater degree of substitution of western missile components for Chinese ones, which Vlasiuk said appeared to be a “forced” substitution.
Although Ukraine’s Western allies have restricted the export of electronics which could be used in missiles to Russia, Western chips supplied through illicit means are still often found in Russian missiles and drones.
Ukraine has long put pressure on Western countries to toughen enforcement against electronic component flows to Moscow.