Vladimir Putin’s new Oreshnik “super-weapon” is a propaganda invention to scare the West and is at least five years away from production, Russian officials have admitted.
Russia fired the nuclear-capable hypersonic missile at Dnipro, Ukraine, on Nov. 21 in what was described as a combat test.
Footage of the attack caused alarm around the world, although it caused almost no damage to the Ukrainian defense plant it targeted because the Putin missile was not equipped with live warheads.
The Moscow Times now reports that four Russian officials say the Oreshnik threat to Ukraine and the West was an “orchestrated spectacle” by the Putin regime, and that imminent use of the weapon to cause major damage is nearly impossible.
“There were brainstorming sessions on how to respond and how to put the Americans and the British in their place for allowing Zelensky to use long-range weapons (against Putin’s territory),” a Russian source said, according to the report.
“And how to scare Berlin and other Europeans so that they don’t do it again.”
A Defense Ministry source also admitted that Russia “most likely has no real stockpile of Oreshnik systems.”
“Given the bureaucracy and the delay, the industry will need between five and seven years to establish its production,” they added.
The moment when Russia first used the Oreshnik to attack the Dnipro, November 21.
Vladimir Putin’s new Oreshnik ‘superweapon’ (pictured) is a propaganda invention to scare the West and is at least five years away from production, Russian officials have admitted.
Pictured above is Putin’s Oreshnik hypersonic missile hitting a defense plant in Dnipro, Ukraine, on November 21.
The report said that “a classic military propaganda campaign was designed to instill exaggerated ideas about the Russian military-industrial complex.”
Another Russian official told the newspaper: ‘There were several (episodes) of this show that were staged and presented to the public.
“The main ones were the attack with the Oreshnik missile and the dissemination of images on social networks and in foreign media.”
Initially, when the missile was fired it was feared that it was an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
The report claims that a moment when senior Russian Foreign Ministry officials were called on their mobile phone mid-press conference to ask them not to comment on the ICBM claim was part of the propaganda operation to exaggerate the Oreshnik.
“The actors in the show included Foreign Ministry press secretary Maria Zakharova and Kremlin media curator Alexei Gromov,” the report said.
“The latter called Zakharova right during the briefing and forbade her over the loudspeaker to ‘comment on the ballistic missile attack’ in Dnieper.”
One of the Russian officials told the media outlet: “Some participants in the brainstorming sessions were especially proud of this stunt with Gromov’s alleged call.”
These are the distances that the hypersonic missile could supposedly reach
A screenshot taken from images released by the Russian Ministry of Defense on March 1, 2024 purports to show the test firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile belonging to the country’s nuclear deterrent forces.
Putin then intervened by threatening Ukraine and the West with the use of multiple warheads if the United States and Britain continued to allow Ukraine to fire its ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles into Russian territory.
Previously, the Kremlin dictator and his propagandists had openly threatened to use nuclear weapons, but there was a feeling that they had called their bluff and needed a new non-nuclear threat with which to terrorize Ukraine and the West.
He compared a non-nuclear Oreshnik to a “meteorite”, saying that the temperature of the explosion zone would be almost as large as the surface of the sun.
“These are quite powerful elements that heat up to a temperature of 4,000 degrees Celsius,” he said.
‘A kinetic impact, a massive impact. Like a meteorite falling. We know in history how and which meteorites fell, where and what the consequences were. It was enough to form entire lakes, right?
“The apparently secret development of the Oreshnik was publicized because the Kremlin’s nuclear threats ‘are no longer as effective as before, and Western experts and leaders alike call for ignoring them,’ The Moscow Times said.
‘This is why Kremlin experts recommended launching a massive public relations campaign around Oreshnik.
A view shows the site of a Russian missile attack, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Dnipro.
On Nov. 21, Russia fired an experimental missile at Ukraine, Western government officials said. Ukraine initially accused Russia of firing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in combat for the first time in history in an attack on the Dnieper.
Fragments of a rocket that hit Dnipro on Nov. 21 are seen at a forensic analysis center at an undisclosed location in Ukraine, Nov. 24.
‘However, Russia lacks a substantial stockpile of Oreshnik systems, and Putin himself admitted that the Dnipro attack was a test.
“Realistically, it would take years to mass produce the Oreshnik, given the bureaucratic inefficiencies and lagging innovation plaguing Russia’s defense sector.”
Pavel Aksyonov, BBC Russia military analyst, said: ‘Putin waved the nuclear baton for too long. I needed something new. Then (took out) the Oreshnik.
“It hasn’t destroyed anything, it won’t be available to the army soon, but everyone is afraid.”