Ukraine denies Forbes report on unsuccessful launch of Oreshnik missile at Kyiv
On February 6, Russia did not launch its Oreshnik ballistic missile, as Forbes had reported. In such a case, Russia should warn Western countries about it, said the head of the Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council, Andriy Kovalenko.
“There was no warning, and there was no launch itself with the subsequent ‘missile fall’,” he says.
Forbes claimed that on Thursday, February 6, a second Oreshnik was to hit Kyiv. The journalist referred to Ukrainian blogger Kyrylo Sazonov, who said that “Oreshnik didn’t fly far,” exploding in Russian territory.
For the first time, Russia used the Oreshnik against Ukraine in the early morning of November 21, 2024, hitting the city of Dnipro.
Ukrainian intelligence officials said that "Oreshnik" is the name of the Russian research project, and the system itself is actually called Kedr. It is a nuclear weapon carrier. But to strike Dnipro, the Russians used it in a "non-nuclear version".
According to Defense Intelligence, as of October, the Russians were supposed to have produced two prototypes of the "Oreshnik", and there was no talk of mass production.
At a session of the CSTO Collective Security Council, the Russian dictator threatened to fire Oreshnik missiles at Ukraine. According to Putin, there are “no analogues” to this weapon in the world, and “they will not appear soon,” but Russia “has several more ready-to-use systems similar to Oreshnik.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russian President Vladimir Putin's threats to strike with the Oreshnik missile are aimed at disrupting the peace efforts of newly elected US President Donald Trump.