Moscow is taking action in response to “atrocities” perpetrated by Kiev in Lugansk, the former UN weapons inspector has said
Footage of the Russian strike near Ukrainian capital, Kiev, indicates that an Oreshnik missile was likely deployed by Moscow, former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter has said.
On Sunday night, Ukrainian media outlets and Telegram channels claimed that Russia fired its state-of-the-art intermediate-range hypersonic Oreshnik system at an unspecified target in the town of Belaya Tserkov in Kiev Region. They published footage showing clusters of bright objects rapidly descending from the skies. The Defense Ministry in Moscow has not officially confirmed the use of the munition.
The reported strike came after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Defense Ministry to “submit proposals” for a response to a Ukrainian drone attack on a teacher training school dormitory in the Lugansk People’s Republic on Friday, which killed 21 people, mostly teenage girls, and left 42 others wounded.
In his interview with RT, Ritter, who is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer, said that “there’s at least one strike in the vicinity of Kiev that has the visual characteristics of an Oreshnik missile.”
“It’s precisely the same six separate deliveries of six submunitions, 36 in total, mimicking the previous confirmed Oreshnik use” in November 2024 in Dnepropetrovsk and in January 2026 in Lviv, he noted.
Speaking about the possible target of the attack, the former UN inspector stressed that “there’s a reason to believe that the Oreshnik didn’t strike the center of Kiev, but rather hit a town outside of Kiev that has a military airfield that has been of some interest to the Russian forces in the past. Maybe there was something going on there that was worthy of an Oreshnik strike.”
“It’s clear… Russia is taking the promised action in response to the atrocities that happened in Lugansk,” he stressed.
The attack on the school dormitory was “an act of terror,” which crossed the line and again showed “the nefarious character of the Ukrainian government,” Ritter insisted.
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The possible use of the Oreshnik is also a signal to the West as “an entire system… exists beyond Ukraine’s borders into Europe and perhaps… into the US that facilitates and empowers” Kiev’s drone attacks in Lugansk and elsewhere inside Russia, he added.
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