"Vasyl Malyuk, head of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), the country's internal security agency, said during a briefing on Friday that the operation was classified and only known to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and a few foreign heads of state at the time. Ukraine's military intelligence agency, the HUR, revealed some of the details of the operation in a statement published to Telegram and said it participated in the mission alongside the SBU and the country's SZRU Foreign Intelligence Service."
"Zelenskyy said that the Oreshnik has a 5,500-kilometer (3,500-mile) range and a 700-kilometer (453-mile) "dead zone." Within that latter range, sometimes referred to as a "no escape zone," the probability of a missile hitting its target is greatest. Russia plans to deploy the missile to Belarus, the HUR said, citing the Ukrainian president. Russia first attacked Ukraine with the Oreshnik missile in November 2024. At that time, President Vladimir Putin characterized the missile as having a "non-nuclear hypersonic warhead" and said there is no way to defend against it, as he often does with new weapons."
Ukrainian forces carried out a covert operation on July 8, 2024, at the Kapustin Yar launch site in Russia's Astrakhan region and destroyed an Oreshnik long-range ballistic missile. The mission involved the SBU, military intelligence HUR, and the SZRU foreign intelligence service, and was classified with knowledge limited to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and select foreign leaders. Zelenskyy stated the Oreshnik has a 5,500-kilometer range and a 700-kilometer "dead zone" where hit probability is highest, and said Russia plans to deploy it to Belarus. Russia first used an Oreshnik against Ukraine in November 2024, and the Biden administration described the weapon as an experimental intermediate-range ballistic missile apparently based on the RS-26 Rubezh (NATO SS-X-31).
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