Russia’s most advanced medium-range ballistic missile system, Oreshnik, could potentially paralyze NATO’s operational readiness in a hypothetical war with Russia, believes Decker Eveleth, an American military expert.
“The good news is that Oreshnik’s conventional capabilities will give Russia more non-nuclear options, theoretically reducing the risk that the Kremlin will consider using nuclear weapons early in a conflict. The bad news is that Oreshnik’s non-nuclear capabilities mean Russia will have more options to significantly disrupt NATO operations at the conventional level,” the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) think tank analyst wrote in an article for Foreign Policy.
In his opinion, a massive Russian attack using conventional Oreshnik missiles on strategic NATO facilities, such as air bases, command centers, and missile storage facilities, could undermine NATO.
“Modern fighter jets – particularly the F-35, which many NATO nations are increasingly using as their multirole aircraft of choice – are too complex to be field repaired. The F-35 and similar aircraft were designed to be operated from large, advanced air bases. Decades of budget cuts have concentrated NATO air forces in just a few of these bases, making them particularly vulnerable to Orieshnik-type missiles,” Eveleth points out.
As a potential response to such an attack, the expert suggests dispersing NATO aircraft in remote locations across Europe to make it harder for Russia to find, target, and destroy them in the event of a potential conflict.
Russia first used the Oreshnik missile in November last year during an attack on the Yuzhmash/Pivdenmash plant in the Ukrainian Dnipro region.
On the same day, Vladimir Putin stated that the attack was a response to Ukrainian strikes with American and British-made missiles (ATACMS, Storm Shadow) carried out earlier on targets in Russian territory, which, in his opinion, could not have been carried out “without the direct participation of military specialists” from the countries that produced these missiles.
According to experts from the Centre for Eastern Studies, in the attack using Oreshnik, the Russians used a MIRV (Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicle) charge, in which each of the six warheads separated into six additional kinetic missiles (without an explosive charge), in the basic version containing nuclear warheads.
“The attack was a political demonstration without any major military significance. (…) The Dnieper is in the range of de facto all ballistic and cruise missiles used by Russia so far, and those that hit Pivdenmash most likely did not cause significant damage,” read the OSW analysis.
In December, Putin said the Oreshnik system could be deployed in Belarus in the second half of 2025. That same month, Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov said that Russia must be prepared for a possible armed conflict with NATO in Europe in the next decade.
