Russia has a new deterrence weapon, and they’ve already used it with precision against Ukraine. It is not a nuclear weapon, either. Its emergence all but signals the end of Ukraine if this war continues.

Oreshnik is a new type of Russian ballistic missile capable of reaching speeds exceeding Mach 10, surviving reentry temperatures of 4,000 °C, and delivering kinetic force that rivals that of tactical nuclear weapons. The Oreshnik isn’t just fast; it’s a newly engineered and completely different weapon of war.

According to a report by RT, this weapon has come to fruition in less than a year. Oreshnik has moved from classified prototype to serial production, with confirmed plans for forward deployment in Belarus by the end of 2025. Its emergence suggests that Russia is rewriting the rules of strategic deterrence, but not with treaty-breaking escalation, but with something quieter, subtler, and potentially just as decisive.

Russia first used the weapon just before dawn on November 21, 2024, to strike the massive Yuzhmash defense facility in southeastern Ukraine

The missile that struck the Yuzhmash facility in Dnepropetrovsk (known in Ukraine as Dnipro) left behind no scorched landscape and no flattened perimeter. Instead, analysts examining satellite imagery noted a narrow impact zone, structural collapse below ground level, and almost surgical surface disruption. It wasn’t the scale of destruction that stood out; it was its shape.

The Oreshnik missile carries a cluster-type penetrative warhead and is likely composed of multiple high-density submunitions. The detonation occurs only after the payload burrows into its target. This design is meant to maximize internal damage to hardened military infrastructure. One of  Oreshnik’s defining features is that of its system. It has the ability to maintain hypersonic velocity during the final phase of flight.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has commented on the weapon’s speed of production and efficacy. “This weapon has proven itself extremely effective in combat conditions, and in a very short time,” he stated.

When Putin announced that the Oreshnik missile system had entered serial production, the speed of this transition from battlefield debut to mass production was notable. It suggests that both the missile system and its supporting infrastructure had been maturing quietly in the background, likely building off earlier research conducted under the RS-26 program.