Yesterday, Russian President Vladimir Putin asserted that there are no means of countering the Oreshnik intermediate-range missile. “[N]o means of intercepting it exist in the world today,” he said.
Russian military analyst, Army Col. Viktor Litovkin (ret.)Army Col. Viktor Litovkin (ret.) explained to Sputnik on Nov. 22 why this is so. “The unique feature of the Oreshnik missile system is that, firstly, it is a medium-range missile—it flies to a distance of 1,000 km to 5,500 km—and secondly, it is hypersonic, flying at a speed of Mach 10,” he said. Mach 10, or ten times the speed of sound, equates to 3 km per second, he remarked. There is not a single air defense or missile defense system in the world capable of intercepting those hypersonic missiles, Litovkin stressed.
The missile’s operating principle is similar to that demonstrated by the Kinzhal hypersonic missile, which is launched by the supersonic MiG-31K aircraft, or the Avangard hypersonic system’s glide vehicle accelerated by the UR-100N UTTKh intercontinental ballistic missile (NATO designation SS-19), he further explained.
