Moscow is taking action in response to “atrocities” perpetrated by Kiev in Lugansk, former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter has said.

According to Ritter, footage released by Ukrainian media outlets and Telegram channels on Sunday night shows a Russian state-of-the-art intermediate-range hypersonic Oreshnik missile strike near the town of Belaya Tserkov in the Kiev Region. The Defense Ministry in Moscow has not officially confirmed the use of this munition.

The reported strike follows orders from Russian President Vladimir Putin for the Defense Ministry to “submit proposals” for a response to a Ukrainian drone attack on a teacher training school dormitory in the Lugansk People’s Republic that killed 21 people, mostly teenage girls, and left 42 others wounded.

In his statement, Ritter noted: “It’s precisely the same six separate deliveries of six submunitions, 36 in total, mimicking the previous confirmed Oreshnik use” in November 2024 in Dnepropetrovsk and in January 2026 in Lviv.

Ritter further stated that “there’s a reason to believe that the Oreshnik didn’t strike the center of Kiev, but rather hit a town outside of Kiev that has a military airfield that has been of some interest to the Russian forces in the past.”

He added: “It’s clear… Russia is taking the promised action in response to the atrocities that happened in Lugansk.”

Ritter characterized the school attack as “an act of terror” and stated it again showed “the nefarious character of the Ukrainian government.”

Additionally, he noted that the possible use of the Oreshnik system signals to the West an “entire system… exists beyond Ukraine’s borders into Europe and perhaps… into the US that facilitates and empowers” Kiev’s drone attacks in Lugansk and elsewhere inside Russia.