Moscow, Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the appearance of the Oreshnik missile system in Russian arms minimises the need to use nuclear weapons. Putin said this at a meeting of the Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights in the country, according to Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti.

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“By and large, we now need to develop Oreshnik rather than the nuclear doctrine, because a sufficient number of these sophisticated systems... put us on the verge of virtually eliminating the necessity to employ nuclear weapons,” the Russian president described.

The head of the Kremlin also added that Russia “does not strengthen the nuclear doctrine, but improves it.”

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On November 21, Russia, with its medium-range missile Oreshnik launched an attack on a major industrial complex in Ukraine's Dnepropetrovsk, that manufactures missile technology, according to reports.

Putin has said that the military tested one of its newest medium-range systems with a ballistic missile in a non-nuclear hypersonic warhead in combat conditions, according to RIA Novosti.

Ukraine’s Air Force said that Russia used an intercontinental ballistic missile during the attack. The United States confirmed officially that Russia struck the region with a missile based on the RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile.

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This attack was a response to the strikes carried out in the Kursk and Bryansk regions by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, who used American and British ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles.

Putin also stated that several other weapons systems like Oreshnik, which have no other comparison in the world, are being tested by Russia.

Although Oreshnik is not a weapon of mass destruction (WMD), it can be comparable to the use of nuclear weapons in the case of group use.

(With inputs from agencies)