A member of Russia's parliament has threatened a fresh strike on Ukraine with the Oreshnik, Russia's intermediate-range ballistic missile. Andrei Kolesnik, of the State Duma's defense committee, says the "hour is not far" when Ukraine will "feel what Oreshnik is," casting the strike as revenge for a Ukrainian attack on the Russian city of Sochi, Russian state media reported, according to UNIAN.

Russia has already fired the Oreshnik at Ukraine three times, starting with Dnipro in November 2024, then the Lviv Oblast in January, a strike that landed roughly 70 kilometers from the Polish border and NATO's edge, and again near Bila Tserkva in Kyiv Oblast in May.

Kolesnik frames a strike as revenge

Kolesnik cast the coming strike as an answer to what he called Ukrainian terrorism against civilians. He pointed to a recent Ukrainian attack on Sochi, noting that Ukraine's forces used unmanned naval boats rather than drones.

"This is a terrorist attack in its purest form," he said, adding, "I think the hour is not far when the Ukrainian side will feel what Oreshnik is."

But what Kolesnik did not mention in his threats is that Russia hits Ukraine daily. Kyiv has been under a constant attack by jet-powered drones that trigger an air alert almost hourly since 27 August. Russia also fires presumably two ballistic missile attacks on the Ukrainian capital two times a week, inflicting $12 million in damages per strike and killing civilians. Meanwhile, other regions come under Russian attacks with the same intensity and suffer from Russian advances in the east and south of Ukraine.

The missile is a message more than a weapon

The Oreshnik carries six warheads and flies at around Mach 11. All three strikes were launched from the Kapustin Yar range in southern Russia, according to Ukraine's air force.

Russia has kept up that pressure by deploying a missile brigade to Belarus, positioning that would put more of Europe within the missile's reach.