Experts question Moscow’s claims about Oreshnik missile power
The fall of the Oreshnik blocks on the night of May 24, 2026 (Photo: Video/Social Media Screenshot)
The Russian Oreshnik missile is not as destructive as Kremlin propaganda claims, experts concluded after inspecting the sites where its blocks fell, Defense Express reported on May 25.
The Kremlin claims the missile is equipped with special tungsten kinetic warheads capable of penetrating buried targets and hitting “secret underground shelters.” Russia uses this claim to explain the absence of large-scale surface destruction.
However, according to Defense Express, citing its own sources, craters left by Oreshnik blocks in ordinary soil are roughly up to three meters in diameter and up to two meters deep.
Due to the enormous impact energy, the blocks themselves were almost completely destroyed, undergoing extreme fragmentation with partial vaporization of the material.
“This does not make it possible to answer whether these are indeed so-called ‘rods’ or the bodies of mass-dimensional mockups of charges. In any case, the overall size and depth of the craters, as well as the damage to garages, correspond to what was studied in Dnipro and Lviv. In other words, there is no evidence of any new warhead either,” the experts said.
Defense Express preliminarily estimated the impact energy at 220–400 megajoules, which is roughly equivalent to an explosion of 52–95 kilograms of TNT. At the same time, experts stressed that such a comparison is conditional because a kinetic strike and a chemical explosion release energy in fundamentally different ways.
A kinetic strike also produces almost no fragments, unlike high-explosive warheads, the outlet noted.
According to Defense Express, one Oreshnik strike involving 36 blocks can be conditionally compared to an attack by 36 Shahed drones with enhanced warheads, although the nature of the damage is significantly different.
The missile’s production rate remains extremely low. Russia plans to produce only about five Oreshnik missiles in 2026, or roughly one missile every 2–2.5 months, according to the outlet. By contrast, Russia needs about eight hours to produce 36 Shaheds.
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