President Vladimir Putin said the “Oreshnik” missile strikes Russia’s army has carried out against Ukraine have not constituted combat use of the weapon. “We struck where it was convenient to observe the result,” Putin told journalists at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
One of the strikes, Putin said, targeted “a barn” to evaluate “how the submunition blocks came down,” with drones deployed to observe and document the impact site. He said it was necessary for the weapon’s future deployment.
“We tested similar systems at test ranges, but not the Oreshnik,” the president said.
Putin said the Russian army also struck targets in the Kyiv and Donetsk regions with the “Oreshnik.” He suggested that Oreshnik strikes could, in the future, be directed at densely populated urban areas.
Russian forces struck Bila Tserkva with an Oreshnik missile on May 24. OSINT researchers reported that two missiles were launched at the time, and that one of them came down in Russian-controlled parts of the Donetsk region. Neither Russia nor Ukraine officially acknowledged that two missiles had been fired rather than one.
Russian forces have used the Oreshnik on two other occasions since the start of the war in Ukraine. In November 2024, they struck Dnipro, and in January 2026, the Lviv region.
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