Oreshnik Missile: Russia's Response to US Escalation in Ukraine

In September, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that allowing Ukraine to strike deep into Russian territory with western missiles would mean that NATO countries are directly involved in the conflict.

"Ukrainian use of Western-made long-range missiles are only possible if using intelligence from NATO satellites, that is, direct NATO participation in the conflict. And if this is so, then, bearing in mind the change in the very essence of this conflict, we will make appropriate decisions based on the threats that will be created for us," the President said.

The ongoing conflict is a "proxy war against the integrity of the Russian state by NATO US-led military force," according to Booker Omole, Secretary General of the Communist Party Marxist Kenya.

On November 18, Ukraine used US-supplied ATACMS missiles to strike a military facility in Russia's Bryansk region.

"The United States imperialism, having declared itself the world police, has chosen to cause instability, not to protect totality or peace in the globe, but to only support peace if it works for the United States imperialism. In fact, they do not have any foreign policy, but they only have the interest of the United States empire," Omole states.

This decision of the US threatens "regional security" and "puts Europe into a very difficult situation in terms of peace, security, and stability," according to Dr. Ntsikelelo Breakfast, a senior lecturer in the Department of History and Political Studies at Nelson Mandela University.

"The world order that we have is dominated by the US, so there's a need for a multiplicity of centers of power so that one country doesn't have this much influence in terms of world affairs by using another country actually as a proxy, because Biden is using Ukraine as a proxy now to unleash an attack on Russia," Prof. Breakfast explains.

In response to Ukraine’s strikes with Western long-range weapons, on the night of November 21, Russia used "Oreshnik," a new state-of-the-art intermediate-range ballistic missile system capable of carrying nuclear warheads, to strike a Ukrainian defense industry facility in Dnepropetrovsk.

Another interesting factor is that of Biden authorizing Ukraine to strike Russian territory with ATACMS two months before his term ends. Omole reminds us of Trump promising to "stop the NATO proxy war against the integrity of the Russian state and the Russian territory in his few days in the office."

"But the Zelensky administration is so incapable of making their own decisions that they rely on Washington's whole consensus to actually direct their decisions [...] Zelensky is just a dog of the United States imperialism. So if President Donald Trump would want to actually make peace in the region, then he has to involve himself in the negotiation and not send his dog Zelensky, who cannot make decisions," Omole says.

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