Forbes: Russia Creats ‘Oreshnik’ Missile, Breaking Agreements With US

• 22.11.2024, 8:39

It was made on the basis of another Rubezh RS-26 ballistic missile.

The medium-range Oreshnik ballistic missile, with which Russia attacked Dnipro on November 21, was created by ‘treacherous’ violators of the 1987 Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Short-Range Missiles. Forbes writes about it.

The journalists reminded that the Deputy Speaker of the Pentagon Sabrina Singh described the ‘Oreshnik’ as a variant of the Russian RS-26 ‘Rubezh’ ballistic missile, which is a 40-tonne solid-fueled missile that falls into two treaty categories.

Depending on the angle at which it is launched, the RS-26 can travel just over 3,400 miles, which makes it an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). At the same time, it can be called an air-launched cruise missile (ALCM), which has a shorter range than 3,400 miles.

The problem for the designers of the RS-26 was that until 2019, the United States and Russia were parties to the 1987 Intermediate-Range and Short-Range Missile Elimination Treaty, which banned the testing and deployment of missiles between 310 and 3,400 miles.

‘Capable of carrying a nuclear payload as well as striking with minimal warning, ICBMs have a uniquely destabilising effect - hence the treaty. But Russia secretly continued to develop missiles in this category, eventually forcing the United States to withdraw from the treaty despite some objections from arms control advocates in 2019. Russia soon did the same,’ the piece said.

According to the journalists, the fact that the Oreshnik is a version of the RS-26 proves that the former is not necessarily an ICBM, and the latter almost certainly is not.

Nuclear weapons expert Hans Kristensen noted that ‘Oreshnik’ is even ‘a bit funny’ because of its confusing origin.