Why Russia doesn’t need to go nuclear to make its point – and how Oreshnik makes that clear Just before dawn on November 21, 2024, a fireball streaked across the sky over the Dnieper River. It wasn’t a meteor. It wasn’t a drone. The explosion that followed – precise, deep, and eerily silent on the surface – tore through the massive Yuzhmash defense facility in southeastern Ukraine. Footage of the strike spread within hours, picked apart by open-source analysts and intelligence services alike.