May 24, 2026
The predecessor of the Oreshnik IRBM is the Soviet RSD-10 Pioner medium-range missile
russia used the Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) for the third time to strike Ukraine – what conclusions can be drawn from this attack
The russian occupation army again used the Oreshnik IRBM during another terrorist strike on Ukraine – the russians struck the city of Bila Tserkva, in the Kyiv region, with this weapon at around 1 am on Sunday, May 24. This information was confirmed by Yuriy Ignat, head of the communications department of the Air Force Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
This is the third time that russia has used the Oreshnik in a “kinetic” version to strike Ukraine. Given that the main russian strike on the night of May 24 this year was focused on the city of Kyiv, the question arises whether the russians could have missed the Oreshnik missile by as much as 80 km and whether they planned to hit the Ukrainian capital with this missile system. For reference, during the russian massive strike on the night of Saturday, May 23 to Sunday, May 24 this year, the enemy used a truly large arsenal of weapons, including long-range strike drones, cruise, ballistic and hypersonic missiles.
It seems that the russians still had plans to hit the Oreshnik missile precisely at Bila Tserkva, choosing, for example, an airfield as a target. However, as reported by the OSINT channel “CyberBoroshno”, the missile hit a garage cooperative. In the end, according to the results of the night attack, the Kyiv Regional Military Administration reported that the garage cooperative, as well as the buildings of an unnamed enterprise, were damaged in the Belotserkivskyi district.
The real effectiveness of such use of this missile, even in the case of hitting the target, is very doubtful. russian propagandists are already writing about this on social networks, once again complaining about why this missile was “without a warhead”. At the same time, we note that despite everything, the Oreshnik missile can pose a serious danger to the civilian population. First of all, it is a means of terror. This missile, the main purpose of which is to deliver a nuclear charge, is unlikely to have a very high level of accuracy.
It should be noted that the previous two strikes could have had real practical goals in one way or another. For example, the russian federation first launched the Oreshnik IRBM on the Dnieper City in November 2024, which was a kind of “rehearsal of a nuclear strike.” The second time, in January of this year, was a strike on the outskirts of Lviv – then the russians could have launched the missile to check how Europe would track the strike with this missile system.
In addition, the use of the Oreshnik IRBM can also be explained by propaganda goals and the enemy’s desire to put moral pressure on Ukrainians. Usually the threat of using this missile system is warned in advance, and the main and really nervous question is whether the russians will dare to use it with a nuclear warhead. Although such a scenario is very, very unlikely, the constant emphasis of russian propaganda on this may have a certain impact on the population of Ukraine.
At night, almost immediately after the strike, a video appeared showing the moment the Oreshnik missile hit, which the russians used again in the so-called “kinetic version” – this is how russian propagandists themselves previously called the mass-dimension mock-ups used in this missile system during strikes on Ukraine, while this missile is primarily intended for delivering nuclear strikes. In the video below, you can see the fall of individual blocks, each with six submunitions. In total, the Oreshnik missile system is equipped with six such blocks.
In addition, it is worth paying attention to the fact that if a significant period of time passed between the first and second attack (a little more than thirteen months), then between the second and third strike – only four and a half months. This allows us to cautiously say that the russians could have accelerated the pace of production of this missile – there is currently no official data on this.
According to data released last year, this year the russians had plans to produce six Oreshnik IRBMs, and as of last year, a total of three had been produced, one of which was used to strike Ukraine, and another was destroyed at the Kapustin Yar test site by the forces of Ukraine’s Defense Intelligance, the Security Service of Ukraine, gas well as Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine.
I think putler used this Oreshnik to target Kyiv, and failed miserably. He has been saying this war will end soon. Was this is last big hurrah before the shithole collapses?
I doubt Ukrainians are too worried about these missiles, or the propaganda coming out of mafia land. When the rat threatens to nuke you every week, the novelty kind of wears off.
It wears off for those that have something like a spine and brains, which you cannot say with many Western politicians. Merz is still not sending Taurus to Ukraine and so on and so forth.