What we know about the new hypersonic Oreshnik missile Russia used against Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Moscow would continue testing the hypersonic Oreshnik ballistic missile in "combat conditions" a day after firing one on Ukraine. "We will continue testing this newest system. It is necessary to establish serial production," he said in a televised meeting with military chiefs.

President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia would keep testing the hypersonic Oreshnik missile it fired at Ukraine a day earlier and begin serial production of the new system.

Putin, in televised comments, said the missile was incapable of being intercepted by an enemy.

"I will add that there is no countermeasure to such a missile, no means of intercepting it, in the world today. And I will emphasise once again that we will continue testing this newest system. It is necessary to establish serial production," he said.

The new intermediate-range ballistic missile called Oreshnik used by Russia in a strike on Ukraine is a nuclear-capable weapon that had not been previously mentioned in public.

In an unscheduled television appearance on Thursday, Putin said the strike on the city of Dnipro had tested in combat conditions "one of the newest Russian mid-range missile systems".

He said missile engineers had christened the missile Oreshnik, or hazel tree, in Russian.

Putin said it had been deployed "in a non-nuclear hypersonic configuration", and that the "test" had been successful and had hit its target.

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