War in Ukraine: Russia mistakenly fired an Orechnik missile into its annexed territories

• During a wave of nighttime strikes on May 23, Russia used several Oreshniks.
• One of these hypersonic missiles accidentally hit the Donetsk People’s Republic, this territory annexed in 2014 by Moscow, according to Le Monde.
• Vladimir Putin, refusing to confirm an error, spoke of an “experimental” strike.

When Russia mistakenly bombs the territories it annexed in 2014. This is what happened on May 23 in a town in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), where an Orechnik, this intermediate-range missile capable of carrying a warhead, crashed nuclear.

As early as May 24, the Russian Defense Ministry recognized the use of Orechnik missiles to target Ukraine in nighttime bombings, claiming to have only targeted military targets. Results: four dead and more than a hundred injured. Volodymyr Zelensky then assured that three missiles had been identified. A fourth shot took place, but it stopped in an area under Russian control.

Un “caractère expérimental”

According to Le Monde (nouvelle fenêtre)which relies on open source experts, this shooting was spotted on May 23 thanks to a video captured by a surveillance camera showing the salvos from a shopping center in Donetsk. Asked by TF1info, a senior French military official confirmed that it was a “fratricidal strike“. “During the first launch, the missile unintentionally hit the Donetsk region, occupied by Russia. Cluster munitions hit the towns of Avdiivka and Yasynuvata“, he said what a denier.

According to the daily, the information relating this error by the Russian army was going to be revealed on Thursday June 4 by European security sources. Vladimir Putin preferred to take the lead, preferring to speak of a test rather than an error. According to the master of the Kremlin, who spoke Thursday on the sidelines of the International Economic Forum in Saint Petersburg, these strikes did not have a “operational, but experimental”. Missiles”struck where it was easy to observe the results. This concerns both Bila Tserkva (editor’s note: in the kyiv region) and the DPR region. Subsequently, our drones flew over the area and analyzed the impacts down to the nearest millimeter. It is crucial for us to evaluate the effects of the use of the Orechnik on objectives located particularly in urban areas.“, detailed Vladimir Putin, according to the Russian newspaper Kommersant (nouvelle fenêtre).

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The use of the Orechnik by Russia has remained infrequent since the start of the conflict. Before last May, Moscow used it twice: in November 2024 against a military factory and in January 2026 against an aeronautical factory in western Ukraine, near the NATO borders. In both cases, the missiles were not loaded with nuclear warheads. “This missile presented as a revolutionary weapon by Russia presents real operational and technological limits“, notes the senior French military official to TF1info. For the latter, the Orechnik highlights “the limits of the Russian military industry“.