The Russian Oreshnik ballistic missile that hit the Ukrainian city of Lviv carried no explosives and hit nothing of military value, implying it was meant to coerce rather than inflict major damage.

The missile struck residential areas in Lviv late Thursday, Ukrainian officials said. There were no casualties, though critical infrastructure was damaged, Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said in a video address.

When Russia hit Ukraine with another Oreshnik in 2024, it first notified the U.S. — which has satellites that can spot missile launches anywhere on Earth — to prevent the attack from being misidentified as a nuclear strike. It wasn’t clear whether Russia also followed that protocol Thursday.

The empty warheads, the fact that the missile was launched from the Kapustin Yar test range in Russia, and that it didn’t hit a military target implies it is being used as a weapon of terror or pressure, said Mick Ryan, a retired Australian Army general and a senior fellow at the Lowy Institute

“It is a tool of strategic coercion, aimed at the Trump administration, European governments and Ukraine,” Ryan said. “Putin has had a few losses lately — he needs to show Russians and other authoritarian nations that Russia is still a winner.”

Russia is irritated by U.S.-Ukraine progress on security guarantees and has a small window to act given its growing economic woes, said a European diplomat, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue. German government spokesman Steffen Meyer called it a further escalation of Russian aggression.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its attack was a response to an alleged attempted Ukrainian strike against a residence of President Vladimir Putin. U.S. national security officials doubt Russia’s claims, and a CIA assessment found no such attack attempt against Putin had occurred. Ukraine denied it attempted to strike the residence.

Oreshnik is unique in that it can carry non-nuclear multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles — heat-shielded warheads that are dropped from space. They aren’t precise because they were designed for use with nuclear warheads, which don’t need to land directly on a target. MIRVs are common on intercontinental ballistic missiles and other nuclear weapons.

Local authorities in Lviv checked radiation levels after the attack on Friday and found no indication of anything abnormal.

MIRVs are difficult to intercept once they are released from the missile body, so weapons such as Oreshnik must be destroyed when they are coasting in space. Ukraine doesn’t have the means to do so nor radars that can track them.

Aegis Ashore batteries in Poland and Romania, equipped with SM-3 Block IIA interceptors, could intercept Oreshnik, as could Germany’s Arrow 3 systems. But missile parts could rain down on Russia, or worse: Those missile launches would look similar to ballistic missile attacks against Russia, said William Alberque, a senior adjunct fellow at the Pacific Forum, a foreign policy research institute.

“You’re basically firing a ballistic missile into Russian territory,” Alberque said. “Taking shots at incoming missiles from Poland means hair-trigger targeting with a 100% chance of something splashing in Russia one way or the other.”

Oreshnik was developed from the RS-26 ballistic missile, which was tested but not added to the Russian arsenal. It’s not known how many Oreshnik systems Russia has, but it has only been used only once before, against the city of Dnipro in November 2024.

In both cases, nothing of particular military value was hit, and the relative inaccuracy of MIRVS makes it difficult to aim at targets smaller than a city block.

“It’s a terror weapon,” Alberque said.

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—With assistance from Alberto Nardelli and Arne Delfs.

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