Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has shared a video showing the strike on a Ukrainian defense industrial facility using Russia’s new Oreshnik hypersonic missile system.
The first reports of Russia carrying out an unusually powerful strike on the industrial complex in Dnepropetrovsk started to emerge on Thursday. Ukrainian officials suggested that Russia had deployed an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) which was armed with conventional warheads.
In a post on X, Medvedev, who serves as deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, shared CCTV footage of the strike which was previously released by Ukrainian media. It appeared to show several warheads falling on the Ukrainian military plant at night.
“So, that’s what you wanted? Well, you’ve damn well got it!” Medvedev wrote.
On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin clarified that the attack did not use an ICBM, but rather a medium-range missile system developed after the US withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 2019.
He also stressed that the attack was in response to Ukraine using US-made ATACMS and HIMARS systems, as well as British-made Storm Shadow missiles, to strike into internationally recognized Russian territory. Kiev’s Western backers were previously reluctant to authorize such strikes, citing fears of escalation.
The strikes deep into Russia with Western-made long-range missiles mean that “the regional conflict in Ukraine provoked by the West has assumed elements of a global nature,” Putin said. Any further steps by Ukraine and its backers would be met with an appropriate response, he added.
According to Putin, the Oreshnik missile, which was kept in secret until the Dnepropetrovsk strike, can reach a speed of 2.5 to 3 kilometers per second, meaning there are no air defense systems in the world capable of intercepting it.