(GEO MILITARY AFFAIRS) — Russia has announced a major escalation in its hypersonic weapons program with the full-scale production of the Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile, a Mach 10-capable system that experts warn could upend strategic balances across Europe and beyond.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking at a graduation ceremony for military cadets, confirmed that serial production of the Oreshnik missile system is now underway following what he described as successful real-world combat use in Ukraine.
“The serial production of the latest medium-range missile complex ‘Oreshnik,’ which has proven itself very well in combat conditions, is underway,” Putin stated in his nationally televised remarks, signaling a clear pivot in Russia’s military-industrial trajectory.
This high-velocity missile, named after the Russian word for “hazel tree,” was first launched operationally on November 21, 2024, in a precision strike targeting the Pivdenmash defence-industrial facility in Dnipro, Ukraine.
The Oreshnik attack was explicitly framed by Moscow as a retaliatory response to what it termed the “crossing of red lines” by Ukraine, following its use of U.S.-made ATACMS ballistic missiles and British-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missiles against targets inside Russia.
Putin’s remarks suggest the Oreshnik is intended not only as a tactical battlefield asset but as a strategic messaging tool designed to deter further Western-sanctioned strikes on Russian territory.
The Oreshnik represents a new generation of solid-fuel, mobile-launched, hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs), with a published range of 1,000 to 5,500 kilometers—placing nearly all of NATO’s forward-deployed forces, key infrastructure, and political capitals within its reach.
At Mach 10—ten times the speed of sound—the Oreshnik is designed to evade interception by Western missile defence systems through advanced mid-course maneuverability and low radar cross-section, traits which position it squarely within the top echelon of next-generation strike platforms.
According to Russian state sources, the missile carries multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs), making it capable of delivering both nuclear and conventional payloads across a wide array of targets in a single mission profile.
The November 2024 strike on Dnipro reportedly demonstrated not only the missile’s ability to penetrate Ukrainian airspace but also its ability to deliver submunitions with high precision—36 inert submunitions were deployed to simulate a multi-impact scenario against hardened defence-industrial nodes.
The system builds upon the developmental lineage of the RS-26 Rubezh—an abandoned Russian ICBM program—and integrates design elements from the Bulava submarine-launched ballistic missile, giving it an architecture refined for rapid acceleration, high survivability, and complex trajectory profiles.
Its launch platform, the Belarus-made MZKT-7930 “Astrolog” transporter-erector-launcher (TEL), offers high mobility and road-based flexibility, increasing its survivability and allowing for quick repositioning even in contested environments.
The geopolitical timing of the Oreshnik’s production scale-up is as significant as its technical specifications.
With NATO member states now openly authorizing Ukrainian long-range strikes into Russian territory, Moscow appears to be using the Oreshnik to signal that it retains the capacity—and political will—for strategic escalation if provoked.
Russia’s warning that it may deploy the Oreshnik to Belarus by the second half of 2025 has further inflamed security concerns in NATO’s eastern flank, particularly in bordering states such as Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia.
Should such a deployment occur, the missile’s range would allow it to strike deep into the heart of Western Europe within minutes, compressing NATO’s response timelines to near-zero and challenging existing early-warning and air defence architectures.
Putin has also repeatedly underscored the strategic potency of the system, stating that the Oreshnik’s destructive force is “comparable to a nuclear weapon” and that its speed and maneuverability make it “impossible to intercept”—a claim that, while questioned by some Western analysts, is difficult to fully disprove without access to classified intercept data.
Critics in the West caution that Russian statements may exaggerate the Oreshnik’s reliability and maturity, pointing to limited test transparency and unresolved questions about Russia’s ability to mass-produce precision hypersonic glide vehicles under sanction-constrained industrial conditions.
Nonetheless, the Kremlin’s decision to publicly elevate the Oreshnik into serial production suggests a high degree of confidence in its operational readiness—or at least a desire to project such confidence for deterrence and propaganda value.
The weapon’s introduction into active production also comes at a time when global arms control frameworks are in tatters.
The collapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 2019 removed the last legal barrier to the development of precisely the type of missile the Oreshnik represents—land-based systems capable of striking within 5,500 kilometers.
Moscow is now seizing that vacuum to bolster its deterrent posture, further complicating NATO’s strategic planning at a moment when the alliance is expanding its forward presence in Eastern Europe and reinforcing the defence of the Suwałki Gap.
The implications for regional and global stability are profound.
With the Oreshnik in its arsenal, Russia could now hold at risk major European command-and-control centers, airbases, logistics hubs, and political capitals within minutes—forcing NATO to accelerate its investment in counter-hypersonic capabilities like the U.S. Glide Phase Interceptor (GPI) and the Franco-German TWISTER program.
At a time when the United States and China are also heavily investing in hypersonic weapon systems, the Oreshnik’s production signals that the arms race has fully entered a post-INF, post-deterrence phase—one characterized by rapid launch platforms, unpredictable trajectory profiles, and shrinking response windows.
Military planners across Europe are now evaluating how best to respond.
Already, there are discussions in NATO corridors about the need to station additional THAAD and Aegis Ashore systems closer to Russia’s borders, improve satellite-based tracking systems, and update nuclear posture reviews to account for the new missile threat.
Some analysts believe that Moscow may also be positioning the Oreshnik as a potential export system for select strategic partners under its sphere of influence, though current production scale and sanctions make that prospect speculative for now.
Still, even without exports, the domestic operationalization of the Oreshnik could enable Moscow to shift from reactive nuclear doctrine to a more flexible, non-strategic deterrence strategy—leveraging its hypersonic arsenal for coercion, denial, or punitive strikes short of all-out war.
As the Ukraine war grinds on and Western nations double down on supplying Kyiv with long-range strike capabilities, Russia’s hypersonic response—embodied in the Oreshnik—adds yet another layer of danger to a conflict that is already redefining the nature of 21st-century warfare.
Whether the Oreshnik ultimately proves to be a true game-changer or a symbolic showpiece, its very existence forces adversaries to prepare for a future where speed, range, and unpredictability define the new face of strategic warfare.
For now, the world watches as Russia’s Oreshnik rolls off the production line—not just as a missile, but as a message.
— GEO MILITARY AFFAIRS