A US intelligence assessment has concluded that Russia could use its new lethal intermediate-range ballistic missile against Ukraine again in the "coming days," said a US official on Wednesday.
The experimental missile Oreshnik is seen by US officials more as an attempt at intimidation than as a radical change on the battlefield in Ukraine, according to a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The official said that Russia only has a handful of these missiles and that they carry a smaller warhead than other missiles that Russia has regularly launched against Ukraine.
Russia first fired the weapon in a missile attack on November 21 against the Ukrainian city of Dnipro. Surveillance camera footage of the attack showed huge fireballs piercing the darkness and hitting the ground at astonishing speed.
Within hours of the attack on the military facility, Russian President Vladimir Putin made the unusual decision to speak on national television to boast about the new hypersonic missile. He warned the West that its next use could be against NATO allies of Ukraine that allowed Kiev to use their longer-range missiles to strike inside Russia.
The attack occurred two days after Putin signed a revised version of Russia's nuclear doctrine that lowered the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons. The doctrine allows for a possible nuclear response from Moscow even to a conventional attack on Russia by any nation supported by a nuclear power.
That attack also occurred shortly after President Joe Biden agreed to relax restrictions on Ukraine's use of US weapons with greater range to strike deeper into Russian territory. "We believe we have the right to use our weapons against military facilities of countries that allow the use of their weapons against our facilities," Putin said at that time.
The Pentagon said that the Oreshnik was an experimental type of intermediate-range ballistic missile, or IRBM, based on Russia's RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM. The attack marked the first time such a weapon was used in warfare.
Intermediate-range missiles can fly between 500 to 5,500 kilometers (310 to 3,400 miles). Such weapons were banned under a Soviet-era treaty that Washington and Moscow abandoned in 2019.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump is pressing Putin to reach an immediate ceasefire with Ukraine, describing it as part of his active efforts as president-elect to end the war.
"Zelensky and Ukraine would like to make a deal and stop the madness," Trump wrote on social media last weekend, referring to the President of Ukraine.
On the other hand, the Russian Ministry of Defense denounced a new Ukrainian attack on Russian territory with US long-range ATACMS missiles on Wednesday and promised not to leave it unanswered.
"Six US-made ATACMS ballistic missiles were used. Two of the missiles were shot down by the Pantsir air defense system, while the others were diverted with electronic warfare equipment," said the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Military personnel were not injured, but the falling shrapnel "slightly damaged" vehicles and buildings in the area.
"This attack with Western long-range weapons will not go unanswered and appropriate measures will be taken," they added.