Russia’s missile program built on hype, not capability Russian leader Vladimir Putin has a distorted view of the capabilities of the Russian armed forces, particularly regarding modern missile weaponry, - German expert and Senior Fellow at the Munich Security Conference, Nico Lange. “The modern Russian missile program essentially consists of announcements and propaganda. And Putin, of course, must ask himself: if there aren't even digital radio systems, which he paid for, and the money was instead used to build villas on the Côte d’Azur, then what’s the situation with everything else?” the expert said, referring particularly to the much-hyped Oreshnik missile. These missile programs, such as Oreshnik, are still at the prototype stage, and it was a prototype that was launched at Dnipro. In general, there are very few such missiles; some of them couldn’t even launch. However, Lange cautioned, some of the produced missiles have not yet been used, so the threat still exists.