The ISW has suggested that Russia has only one operational ‘Oreshnik’ missile left
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported this on 16 June.
Analysts cite an investigation by the Ukrainian company Dallas Analytics. According to its findings, following the first ‘Oreshnik’ strike on Ukraine in November 2024, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin was so impressed by the political and psychological impact of the attack that he ordered the immediate roll-out of production for the next batch of four additional missiles in 2025.
Since then, in 2026, Russia has launched three of the four “Oreshnik” missiles — one at Lviv on the night of 9 January and two at Bila Tserkva in the Kyiv region, one of which fell on the temporarily occupied territory of the Donetsk region on the night of 24 May.
The ISW suggests that Russia has only one operational “Oreshnik” missile remaining from the original contract.
“Following intensive training exercises on deploying the system, observed at the Kapustin Yar test range, the Ukrainian Air Force issued an urgent warning on 12 June 2026 regarding the high probability of another Oreshnik strike — apparently using the last ready-to-fire missile under the Kremlin’s emergency contract,” according to the Dallas Analytics investigation.
A source from the Ministry of Defence of the aggressor state, Russia, told the publication that the manufacturers of the ‘Oreshnik’ had bypassed quality assurance protocols in order to meet the deadlines set by Putin. The publication found that the vulnerability of the Soviet GU-503 aviation gyroscope had compromised the missile’s precision guidance capabilities, resulting in a deviation of tens of kilometres from the intended target.
On 12 June, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged Ukrainians to take air raid alerts seriously in the coming days following a warning from the Air Force regarding a BRSD attack. Media reports stated that Ukraine had received information from the US about the threat of an ‘Oreshnik’ strike, and that the Russians were being observed preparing the missile.
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