Russia may fire another nutcracker at Ukraine, warns the US

“Most likely, there will be another attempt by Russia to terrorize Ukraine,” said the Reuters source. According to the Bloomberg agency, the United States sees it more as an attempt at intimidation than as a turning point on the battlefield.

Russia used this ballistic missile in the second half of November, when it hit the Ukrainian city of Dnipro. “Russian President Vladimir Putin has at his disposal only a small number of experimental rockets known as Orešnik. They carry a smaller warhead than other missiles that Russia fired at Ukraine earlier,” noted the Reuters source.

Ukrainian test pilot and aviation expert Oleksandr Lychodid, according to the Unian agency, estimates that the Russians will “send” a nutcracker to Ukraine as part of a “massive attack” and their target will most likely be one of the locations in the Ukrainian Carpathians.

“Once the Russians close the routes for civilian aircraft over their territory westward to the Rostov and Voronezh regions, it is clear,” he said.

According to him, the detonated nutcracker will fly somewhere south of Volgograd, reach Morozovsk and enter Ukrainian airspace between Luhansk and Donetsk.

“And then it will go west. I think they will drop it somewhere in the (Ukrainian) Carpathians, they need to show off,” he noted. “But we have no chance to defend ourselves (Orešnik). We don’t have the means to intercept such a shot,” concluded Lychodid.

“When we were finally able to attack Russia with Western weapons, it really scared the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin,” said Ukrainian military and political analyst Yevhen Dikyj, according to Unian.

According to Lychodid, Putin “found himself in a corner” before the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump. “The reports that the Russians are able to produce 25 hazelnuts per month are false,” added Ukrainian analyst Oleksandr Kovalenko, according to the Unian agency.