Over the past few months, the war in Ukraine has seemed advance by inertia: fronts that barely move, stalled negotiations and constant wear and tear that threatens with normalizing the conflict in Europe. But in recent weeks Moscow has remembered, without the need for major territorial conquests, that it continues to have the ability to alter the chessboard with a single gesture: the nuclear one.
The button that is always there. In a stuck war In the mud of the front and industrial wear and tear, Russia has once again remembered that it is still sitting on a strategic bomb pressing a button that does not need to be pressed completely to take effect: that of Oreshnik missilean intermediate-range system with nuclear capacity whose use, even with inert or conventional charges, functions as a political message rather than as a tactical weapon.
The launch detection from the Kapustin Yar strategic polygon and the subsequent explosions near Lviv, a few kilometers from the Polish border, do not seek so much to destroy decisive objectives as to point out that Moscow can escalate whenever it wants and from wherever it wants, even from facilities associated with its strategic nuclear forces, deliberately breaking the “conventional” routine of the conflict.
Symbolic weapon, real threat. It we have counted before: the Oreshnik, derived from the RS-26 program and capable of carrying multiple warheads that separate in flight, it is not a missile designed to win battles in Ukraine, but to cross psychological red lines in Europe. Its hypersonic speed, its potential range of up to 5,500 kilometers and the fact that Ukraine lacks defenses capable of intercepting it turn each launch into a demonstration of the structural vulnerability of NATO’s eastern flank.
When Russia first used it against Dnipro in 2024 with dummy heads, he made it clear that he was not testing marksmanship, but rather strategic credibility. Now, by bringing the impact closer to the NATO border and the European Union, the message is even more explicit.
Controlled climbing. The reappearance of the Oreshnik is no coincidence. It occurs while Ukraine refuses to give up territory in the negotiations, while Moscow insists that any Western troops deployed on Ukrainian soil would be a legitimate objective and while Washington, under Trump, intensifies pressure on Russia’s allies like Venezuela.
The Kremlin justifies the attacks as retaliation for alleged Ukrainian attempts to attack the residence of Vladimir Putinaccusations that even US intelligence services they doubtbut the real logic is different: to raise the psychological and political cost of Western support without formally crossing the nuclear threshold.
Energy, winter and strategic terror. As in previous winters, Russian missiles and drones are once again baiting the Ukrainian energy infrastructureleaving entire neighborhoods in kyiv and other cities without electricity or heating amid sub-zero temperatures.
The Oreshnik fits into this strategy of calculated terror: not only does it damage critical facilities, but it amplifies the feeling of helplessness by introducing a weapon that symbolizes the maximum possible escalation. Ukraine responds by hitting power grids in Russian regions such as Belgorod or Oryol, but the strategic asymmetry remains intact.
Europe as a target audience. Furthermore, by hitting near Lviv and, by extension, Poland, Russia is not just talking to kyiv, but with Brussels, Berlin and Paris. The Oreshnik is a reminder that Ukrainian theater is inseparably linked to European security and that any expansion of military support has an immediate reflection on the deterrence ladder.
It is no coincidence that Moscow recently showed the deployment of the system in Belarus, further extending the reach shadow over the continent.
The temptation of blackmail. Thus, with minimal and extremely slow territorial advances, and a growing human and industrial cost, Russia uses the Oreshnik missile as a substitute for victories on the battlefield. It is not a weapon to conquer Ukraine, of course, but rather to remind the world that the conflict cannot be closed by ignoring the Russian nuclear dimension.
From that prism, each launch is a warning: Moscow does not need to detonate a warhead to reactivate the founding fear of the Cold War. Just show the button, press it even half and make it clear that it is still there, waiting, like a time bomb that sets the pace of all future negotiations.
Image | Ministry of Defense of Ukraine
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