HONG KONG, December 3. /TASS/. Russia has used its newest Oreshnik hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile to prove that the whole of Ukraine is within the reach of its weapons systems, a senior Chinese military expert said.
"Due to the high speed of the hypersonic ballistic missile, the defending side has little time to react. The anti-aircraft missile systems that Ukraine has are absolutely incapable of intercepting them," said Ou Si-Fu, head of the Division of Chinese Politics, Military and Warfighting Concepts under the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, commenting on the Russian armed forces’ use of the Oreshnik missile.
According to the expert, this allows Russia to carry out even more effective strikes on Ukraine. Ou Si-Fu stated that the purpose of using the latest system was to "demonstrate the capabilities of new types of offensive weapons, which the Ukrainian side cannot counter, and that the whole of Ukraine is within Russia's strike range."
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on November 21 that the United States and its NATO allies had earlier announced that they would authorize Ukraine’s use of long-range weapons to hit inside Russia, after which American and British missiles struck Russian military facilities in the Kursk and Bryansk regions. He said that Russia responded to those attacks by firing its newest Oreshnik hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile with a non-nuclear warhead at a Ukrainian defense industry facility, the Yuzhmash plant in Dnepr (formerly Dnepropetrovsk).