Russia only fired a TEST IRBM - 6 INERT WARHEADS - damaged 5 civilian buildings and injured 2 people - a normal IRBM test fired at Ukraine instead of ranges in Russia - imprecise - no military value

[changed ICBM to IRBM in title: this is about the Oreshnik, it's based on the RS-26 which is borderline IRBM / ICBM used to be called an ICBM - Putin calls the Oreshnik an IRBM]

Russia seems to have only fired an INERT NON EXPLOSIVE IRBM (Intermediate range Ballistic Missile) at Dnipro. It is similar to a standard IRBM test using dummy warheads - except that Putin for some reason calls it a new missile. It seems to just drop non explosive lumps of metal on Ukraine from a great height.

It breaks up into 6 warheads which then each break up into 6 non explosive sub-munitions - just lumps of metal. You can tell because with the normal missiles you get an explosion after they hit the ground. But these ones didn’t explode.

So in short, Russia dropped 36 lumps of metal on Dnipro.

2 civilians were injured, one treated on the scene and one taken to hospital 5 civilian buildings were damaged. This was just a normal ICBM test such as Russia does several times a year.

It is quixotic to fire an IRBM at Ukraine but it doesn't break any international treaties.

The invasion itself is illegal but this is nothing.

Instead of testing it on a missile range in Russia it used Dnipro city - the Patriot air defences shot down the six other hypersonic missiles

It is NOT unstoppable. A missile of this type can be stopped by Aegis Ashore - there are two of these systems, one in Poland and one in Romania. They protect all of Western Europe

It can also be stopped by THAAD. There aren't many systems like that. It is a similar type of ballistic missile to the ones Iran fired at Israel - Israel shot nearly all of them down.

Putin does NOT want a nuclear war. All he wants is for Ukraine's allies to abandon it so that he can take over Ukraine.

That is the ONLY reason he says or does any of these things

TEXT ON GRAPHIC:

Russia was going to test it anyway.

• doesn’t break any international treaties.

• insignificant effect on the war.

Eccentric thing to do.

This was just a standard Russian IRBM test, but fired at Dnipro.

• just drops 36 lumps of metal

• no explosions

• imprecise

no military value

Probably not precise enough to hit a football stadium.

Small amount of damage for $10 million+ price tag

• 2 civilians injured, one treated on scene, one hospitalized

• 5 civilian buildings damaged

Likely fired from only 800 km away from Kapustin Jar missile testing facility in Astrahan.

CAN be stopped - send Ukraine a THAAD, enhance Patriot or use Europe’s Aegis Ashore to shoot it down over Ukraine

Image shows detail from this tweet: PS01 △ (@PStyle0ne1) on X

Far smaller than the Chelyabinsk meteorite

It would have to be far bigger to compare to the smallest meteorite to cause any significant harm. The Chelyabinsk meteorite was 20 meters in diameter before it hit Earth and weighed about 14,000 tons and it just blew out windows and made a small hole in the ice a few meters across. It also hit the atmosphere traveling far faster than the Oreshnik.

. Falling to earth: The Chelyabinsk Meteorite

The Oreshnik's payload is 36 submunitions which surely weighed far less than a ton each. Of course to compensate the Oreshnik was streamlined to go through the atmosphere more easily. But we saw from the amount of damage that it didn’t do much compared to some other missiles that have hit Ukraine.

Not unstoppable - can be stopped by upgraded Patriot, or THAAD, or Europe’s Aegis Ashore which covers all of Western Europe

Putin claimed FALSELY that it is unstoppable.

The two most likely options are to upgrade Patriot or to give Ukraine a THAAD system.

QUOTE Two options are being considered to shoot down the said missiles: either to upgrade the Patriot or to obtain the THAAD systems.

. Ukraine seeking to obtain THAAD or upgrade Patriot after Russia's attack with new missile – source

It can likely be stopped by Aegis Ashore. This system protects Europe from ballistic missiles in this range. So we in Europe are safe from this missile.

So, if Russia keeps firing these at Ukraine there are three things Ukraine's allies can do.

1. To give Ukraine one THAAD system,. The issue here is that there are very few such systems. The USA has only 7 but it may be able to send one to Ukraine

2. Upgrade Patriot - there it would need new interceptors able to get to these missiles in time to stop them. That would likely mean adding the RIM-161 Standard Missile 3 - Wikipedia to Patriot

3. The rest of Europe is protected by Aegis Ashore, two systems one in Poland and one in Romania. The one in Romania could shoot down missiles over Ukraine. his likely just requires a decision to let to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles over Ukraine. AegisAshore likely can reach even as far as the launch site of Oreshnik so it easily has the range to shoot it down.

Defence Express says that Ukraine can likely be protected by the additional Aegis Ashore battery in Romania which has been operating since 2016. This likely just needs the decision to permit the Aegis Ashore to shoot down ballistic missiles headed for Ukraine.

Aegis Ashore, like any missile system, has a range. There is only one official illustration of its coverage area. It shows the upper zone covered by the Aegis Ashore system in Redzikovo, which provides only limited coverage for Ukraine.

But there are two Aegis Ashore systems in Europe. The first, which has been operating since 2016, is located in the south of Romania near the village of Deveselu. It has a much more relevant coverage area for Ukraine, which extends all the way to the Caspian Sea. Moreover, it also covers the Kapustin Yar military training area, from which, on November 21, the Russians launched the RS-26 Rubezh—referred to by the Kremlin as Oreshnik—targeting the city of Dnipro.

. Can Aegis Ashore in Poland Protect Ukraine from Long-Range Ballistic Missiles?

It already covers all of Ukraine. But it's like Poland offering to stop drones over Ukraine. NATO countries are not likely to permit Romania or Poland to shoot down incoming Oleshniks’ on their way to hit Ukraine.

At the same time, it is not only about the range, but also the flight trajectory of both the intermediate-range ballistic missile and the SM-3 one. Several conditions must be met for effective interception. In particular, this includes the time between launch and detection, as well as the length and height of the trajectory before the warheads separate.

And most importantly, the decision by the United States and NATO to expand the actual protection zone—not just the capability to intercept targets over Ukraine—and to deploy THAAD as an additional safeguard.

. Can Aegis Ashore in Poland Protect Ukraine from Long-Range Ballistic Missiles?

The issue with 3. is just that Ukraine's allies have been very reluctant to do this. Poland keeps asking the rest of NATO to let it shoot down the Shahed drones over Ukraine but though Poland sees no risk at all in this, some NATO countries don't want it to do this.

There is precedent for sending an extra THAAD to Europe. The USA has only 7 of these systems but when the Aegis Ashore was being repaired in 2019 in Romania, the USA deployed one THAAD system there temporarily

QUOTE In April 2019, the United States temporarily deployed THAAD to Deveselu, Romania while its Aegis Ashore system received maintenance.
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12645

Russia has 521 ICBMs in total accumulated over many years but it is not going to deplete its ICBM arsenal by firing large numbers of them at Ukraine with dummy warheads - that would be silly and achieve nothing of any value.

This shows how they fired it likely from only 800 km away.

Distance measured on Google maps

It is just a political signal. It damaged 5 civilian buildings (an industrial enterprise, rehabilitation center for people with disabilities, boiler facility and two one-family homes). It started some fires which were quickly put out, and injured two people.

QUOTE Dnipro’s Regional Military Administration reported two injuries: a 57-year-old man treated on-site and a 42-year-old woman hospitalized. The strikes damaged an industrial enterprise, a rehabilitation center for people with disabilities, a boiler facility, and two one-family homes, according to the reports from local authorities. Fires broke out at multiple locations, including a garage cooperative where nine garages were damaged. Emergency services extinguished all fires and assisted affected residents.

. Russia hits Dnipro with ICBM followed by aeroballistic and cruise missiles, injuring two

Another account:

QUOTE STARTS

"In the morning, the enemy attacked Dnipro: 2 people were wounded

The building of the rehabilitation center for people with disabilities was damaged. The boiler room was partially destroyed, the windows were broken.

A fire broke out in a two-story residential building on the territory of the private sector. The roof on the area of ​​150 square meters was on fire.

Also in the city, an industrial enterprise and a garage cooperative were damaged, on the territory of which a fire broke out with an area of ​​100 square meters, 9 garages were partially destroyed.”

. bayraktar_1love/status/1859538071554818541

It seems to be on the borderline between an ICBM and an intermediate range ballistic missile which means some would call it an ICBM and some not depending precisely where you draw the line.

From Ukraine’s point of view the main thing is that Patriot can't stop it because it is too fast, more like Mach 20 than Mach 10 and because it split into 6 warheads just before it struck.

On the plus side they don't have any conventional explosives designed to fit in ICBMs. So it just dropped dummy warheads probably lumps of metal or barrels of water. You can tell from the video - there weren't any visual explosions on the ground after it hit and you didn't hear the sound of any explosions.

It is of no military value whatsoever.

It is a new missile under development likely costs more than $10 million each by comparison with other ICBMs .

, Ballistic Missiles

The missile they used is the RSM-56 Bulava

It has 3 to 6 warheads. Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance

. RS-26 Rubezh - Wikipedia

They used it to fire it only 800 km.

. Shashank Joshi (@shashj) on X

Video of it here. No explosions when the warheads hit.

. PS01 △ (@PStyle0ne1) on X

It is not precisely targeted, after all nukes don't need to be.

It is not worth the price for the amount of damage from dummy warheads.

But on the other hand all countries with ICBMs or IRBMs fire them from time to time to test them. They announced they would test this IRBM a few days earlier.

So it seems they thought rather than fire it at a missile range in Russia as they normally do they would fire it at Ukraine, and combine an IRBM test with an attack on Ukraine.

It is the only missile that got through of 7 missiles fired at Dnipro which is in central Ukraine just north of Zaporizhzhia.

QUOTE STARTS

If confirmed, it would mean the launch had "virtually no military value," Fabian Hoffmann, a defense expert and doctoral research fellow at the University of Oslo, told the Kyiv Independent.

He points out that Russia is not known to possess a non-nuclear warhead for the Rubezh, meaning it's likely it carried a "weight simulator, instead of a warhead."

"So this strike is not for military value, this is purely, purely for political purposes," he added.

... Ukraine's U.S.-supplied Patriots have been effective at intercepting the ballistic missiles launched by Russia to date, but according to Defense Express, they are not currently optimized to intercept ICBMs.

If Russia began to regularly launch ICBMs, Ukraine's air defenses would need to be bolstered by more advanced air defense systems like the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense), the outlet reported.

. Russia reportedly launches intercontinental ballistic missile against Ukraine — what we know so far

It is the only missile that got through so you can see why they might use them but only occasionally as they couldn't use large numbers of them.

Ukraine could stop it with SM-6 missiles though they are very expensive and there aren't that many of them.

. If russia Threatens With RS-26 Rubezh, the U.S. Must Provide SM-6 Missiles | Defense Express

But if it is just hitting them with dummy warheads, and only occasionally a few times a year, they may not think it worth doing that - except maybe because they can combine it with testing the SM-6 in combat situations?

This is Dnipro where it hit.

. Dnipro · Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, Ukraine, 49000

He is not going to use a nuke because that would make Russia into a rogue nation. Test firing an IRBM at Ukraine is quixotic but doesn't break any treaties and won't cause China or India to break off their relations with Russia.

Russia is not at all likely to make a regular thing of this as it is pointless militarily but probably will test fire IRBMs at Ukraine from now on instead of against firing ranges in Russia.

It does these tests a few times a year. As does the US, the UK, any country with IRBMs. But of course they fire their tests into the sea or to hit firing ranges on the land like Russia usually did before.

TEXT ON GRAPHIC:

Ukraine will NEVER try to assassinate Putin or hit civilian targets.

All the stories claiming it targets civilians are CLICKBAIT - things like falling debris from missiles shot down by Russian air defences starting fires.

Ukraine often hits MILITARY targets in Moscow.

This is from 1st September

Ukraine struck a major oil refinery in Moscow and other targets across Russia in a large aerial barrage.

Ukraine uses slow propellor driven drones

- Russia has moved most of its air defences to Ukraine

- Russia can't defend Moscow from slow propellor driven drones that travel about the speed of a fast car

Russia is defenceless against NATO

- it can't even stop propellor driven drones

- the modern stealth F-35 fighter jets could fly anywhere in Russia and hit anything and shoot down any radar that tries to look at them before it sees them.

NO WAY that Russia EVER attacks NATO

Image shows frame at 4 seconds into this video

Most media stories don't give you any idea of how VERY weak Russia is.

Was it an ICBM? The RS-26 was tested at 5,500 km which is exactly on the border between ICBM and IRBM “intermediate range” but this variant was fired only 800 km

It looks like an ICBM test rather than a normal ballistic missile because

1. It was far faster - impossible for Patriot to stop

2. It split into 6 independently targeted missiles before hitting the ground

3. It didn’t have any explosives on board just inert lumps of metal, like an ICBM test.

4. Each of the six warheads split into six submunitions.

This is a close up of one of the six warheads re-entering and you can see how it split into 6 pieces.

See. OSINT (Uri Kikaski) 🇺🇸 🇨🇦 🇬🇧 🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@UKikaski) on X

At first this seemed to just be dummy warheads breaking up. But CORRECTION - according to Putin this is by design, it has 6 submunitions for each warhead. But those submunitions from the videos seem to be non explosive lumps of metal that can cause some damage because they heat up during re-entry and are traveling at many times the speed of sound.

But an ICBM is used to refer to any missile with a range over 5,500 km.

That is easily enough to cross the Atlantic from one side to the other

Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) have ranges of greater than 5,500 km. ICBMs create a problem because they enable a country to break out of a regional context and move toward potential global impact. Regardless of the origin of a conflict, a country may involve the entire world simply by threatening to spread the war with an ICBM.

. Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles

Russia is now calling it an IRBM - an Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile but called its precursor the RS-26 an ICBM. So the confusion is really with Russia rather than Ukraine. It calls it the 'Oreshnik' and the Pentagon say it is an updated version of the RS-26. They were notified of the launch briefly in advance. Oreshnik means "hazel" in Russian.

The RS-26 was tested at a range of 5,500 km but has been mothballed. Since ICBMs start at above 5,500 km, if it is a modified version of the same missile then it is kind of gray area whether to call it an ICBM or an IRBM (it may well be able to go a bit over the tested range).

So it's not that Ukraine was mistaken about the missile it's more that Russia has changed the name they use for essentially the same missile.

Also - they don't think Russia will be using this often and they likely have very few of these missiles.

Russia claims they hit a military target. Maybe they aimed at one, I don't know but there are videos of the buildings they hit and they are just normal civilian buildings. A center for disabled people, and a garage cooperative where 9 garages were damaged along with a couple of private houses.

So - it probably just isn't very accurate. They are not likely to use it much in the war and it is just for show.

No way they use it against any NATO country.

Also the US say they see no sign of any preparation by Russia to use nukes and they haven't changed their own defence posture either.

So Ukraine was accurate and the early reports were accurate it is more a case of what you call it than what it was. Everyone is agreed it is a modified RS-26 and th Pentagon

confirmed that this also is their assessment.

Right from the beginning Ukraine said i'’s an RS-26. It is just a debate about what you call an RS-26.

First what the Pentagon says:

QUOTE STARTS

Q: Thanks, Sabrina. A couple of questions on the missile strike in Ukraine. First, it was — can you confirm it was an intermediate range missile? Second, did Russia provide advance warning? And can you say — can you give us some sort of clarity on who they called and how much advance notice did they give?

And then just thirdly on this, what is the overall US reaction to the missile strike and Putin's comments today that he believes Russia has the right to strike any — and take action against countries that provide weapons to Ukraine?

DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY SINGH: Thanks Lita. So, trying to remember some of the order of your questions, so I can confirm that Russia did launch an experimental intermediate range ballistic missile. This IRBM was based on Russia's RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile model.

In terms of notifications to the United States, the United States was pre-notified briefly before the launch through nuclear risk reduction channels. For more, I'd refer you to State on that.

And I think your third question was on our reaction to Putin's comments. I mean, you know, we've seen this type of, you know, dangerous, reckless rhetoric before from President Putin. What we're focused on is continuing to support Ukraine with what it needs.

Ukraine, as you know, has been successful in continuing to push back against Russian aggression. We just rolled out another $275 million package yesterday. You're going to see more packages continue in the — in the weeks and months ahead left of this administration. So, that's what we're really focused on.

Of course, we're going to take seriously the rhetoric coming out of Russia. But our focus remains on arming Ukraine and supporting Ukraine what it needs the most on the battlefield. And as a reminder, as this reckless rhetoric continues, Putin can choose to end this war today. He can choose to withdraw Russian forces and end this — and end, you know, his war of aggression and his war of choice. So, we're going to continue to focus on what Ukraine needs on the battlefield.

Liz?

Q: To follow up on that, earlier this week, Putin signed a new nuclear doctrine for Russia. Have we seen their nuclear posture change at all?

DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY SINGH: We haven't seen any adjustments that we've observed in their nuclear posture, and we haven't adjusted our nuclear posture in exchange. You know, something that I think I said on Tuesday is that they're — the changes that we've made were expected and something that, you know, we had anticipated for a while. Again, extremely, you know, reckless, but we haven't made any adjustment — adjustments to our posture.

. Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh Holds a Press Briefing

Now some more details from The War Zone who do quite good summaries quickly of developing events.

QUOTE STARTS

Ukrainain authorities had initially claimed that the weapon Russia fired today was an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Subsequent reports citing anonymous U.S. government officials have said that it was actually a medium or intermediate-range ballistic missile (MRBM/IRBM). The RS-26 is officially categorized as an ICBM, but experts have long assessed that it is more likely an IRBM. MRBMs, IRBMs, and ICBMs are categorized by their maximum ranges – between 620 and 1,860 miles (1,000 and 3,000 kilometers), between 1,864 and 3,418 miles (3,000 to 5,500 kilometers), and greater than 3,418 miles (5,500 kilometers), respectively.

In his remarks, Putin said that Oreshnik (which means “hazel” in Russian, keeping with the country’s tradition of naming ballistic missiles after trees) had a peak speed of Mach 10, but provided no other details about the weapon. He also made no mention of any connection to the RS-26, work on which was publicly shelved in 2018.

Imagery from today’s attack on Ukraine looks to show six warheads descending on the target and multiple resulting impacts.

...

“Russia launched an experimental intermediate-range ballistic missile against Ukraine,” another U.S. government official also told The War Zone directly. “While we take all threats against Ukraine seriously, it is important to keep a few key facts in mind. Russia likely possesses only a handful of these experimental missiles.”

The RS-26 is itself reportedly a smaller derivative of the RS-24 Yars ICBM. Rubezh is also understood to have a multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) configuration and was associated in the past with the development of the Avangard hypersonic boost-glide vehicle. Russia has publicly fielded Avangard in a silo-based configuration using a repurposed ICBM rocketed booster. Hypersonic boost-glide vehicles offer capabilities that are particularly hard to defend against, as you can read more about here.

...

Whether Oreshnik carries standard re-entry vehicles, maneuvering ones, or true hypersonic boost-glide vehicles remains unknown. Larger ballistic missiles and their payloads, in general, typically reach hypersonic speeds.

A picture said to show a piece of the Oreshnik after the attack looks to be a part that is also found in the Bulava submarine-launched ballistic missile and that is linked to the production of components for other Russian strategic ballistic missiles.

. Russia's Experimental Ballistic Missile Used To Strike Ukraine Is Based On The RS-26 Rubezh

More details on that page.

The US wouldn't go into alert fearing it is a nuclear attack because they were alerted in advance.

They see no preparations by Russia to use nukes. Russia frequently fires the Iskander at Ukraine and other ballistic missiles that are dual purpose designed to carry conventional or nuclear missiles but of course with conventional weapons on board. They have also previously fired a nuclear capable short range ballistic missile with a dummy war head so it's not the first time they did that either. .

But it seems that breaking up was by design not a dummy warhead.

Likely removed one of the stages and the height likely 1,500 km

Details here:

QUOTE STARTS

After the missile strike, Putin said the Oreshnik was hypersonic and could not be intercepted. But Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California, noted that all ballistic missiles of that range are hypersonic, and that missile interceptors such as Israel's Arrow 3 and the U.S. SM-3 Block 2A were designed to destroy them.

The missile, which Putin said struck a Ukrainian military facility, was derived from the RS-26, an intermediate-range ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, which was tested five times but never entered service, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Lewis said the new design had most likely removed a stage of the booster from the RS-26, reducing its range. He noted that using the Oreshnik with conventional warheads was an expensive means "to deliver not that much destruction".

...

The United States considered a program using ICBMs without nuclear warheads called Conventional Prompt Strike, but abandoned it because "it was stupid", said William Alberque, a visiting fellow at the Henry L. Stimson Center. A major problem with putting conventional warheads on ICBMs is that it is easy for adversaries to mistakenly think they are under nuclear attack - confusion that could accidentally lead to a nuclear conflagration.

A U.S. official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, told Reuters that Russia had notified Washington shortly before the Nov. 21 strike. A second official said the U.S. had briefed Kyiv and allies to prepare for the possible use of such a weapon.

Tim Wright of the International Institute for Strategic Studies said that showed Russia was aware of that risk and wanted to mitigate it. Senior Ukrainian officials told Reuters this week that the missile used to attack Dnipro carried no explosives and caused limited damage.

...

Kapustin Yar, where the missile was launched, is only about 800km from the impact point, so a lofted attack is plausible, said Ankit Panda, a senior fellow at the U.S.-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Lewis noted that its reported flight time of 15 minutes would have taken it about 1,500 km on a normal trajectory.

...

"If Russia is working on a MIRV with a conventional CEP, we’ve never seen it," he said, referring to circular error probable (CEP), a measure of weapon accuracy. A nuclear missile typically has a CEP of 50 to 200 metres, meaning half of all rounds aimed at the target will land within that distance of the aimpoint.

...

In videos of the attack, each warhead appeared to drop smaller payloads that could be seen striking the ground. Wright said that if the missile used such submunitions, accuracy was less of a problem because: "it would distribute them over a wide area. It makes it useful for attacking large facilities".

Lewis cautioned that given the expense, using this type of ballistic missile to hit Ukraine might be more a psychological tactic than a military one. "If were inherently terrifying, (Putin) would just use it. But that's not quite enough," Lewis said. "He had to use it and then do a press conference and then do another press conference and say: 'Hey, this thing is really scary, you should be scared.'"

. Enter ‘Oreshnik’

The first launch only had dummy warheads according to Ukraine.

QUOTE STARTS

KYIV (Reuters) - A new ballistic missile fired by Russia at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro last week carried multiple warheads but no explosives, and caused limited damage, two senior Ukrainian government sources said.

Their comments appeared to confirm the Kremlin's own description of the weapon's use last Thursday as a warning to the West after the United States and Britain allowed Ukraine to fire their missiles into Russia.

...

One of the sources said the missile was carrying dummy warheads and described the damage caused as "quite small".

The second source said: "In this case, (the missile) was without explosives...There were no types of explosions like we expected. There was something, but it was not huge."

...

Leaving out the explosives in a "reentry vehicle" - the heat-shielded part of the missile that carries the warhead - leaves room for instrumentation, which countries testing missile designs can use to measure performance, experts say.

It is not publicly known whether the Russian warheads carried such gear.

. new-russian-missile-fired-at-ukraine-carried-warheads-without-explosives-sources-say

Moscow Times says it was a deliberately orchestrated propaganda stunt rather than a real new weapon system

Quick summary:

• Putin sees that his bluffs are no longer working

• The US approval for ATACMS was a surprise for him

So then the Russian propaganda came up with a PR plan.

• false claim they were developing a new missile system, the Oreshnik

• in reality just a missile test fired at Ukraine

This propaganda stunt had several phases

1. The missile test itself with the dummy warheads landing in Dnipro

2. Footage shared on social media.

3. A staged "hot mike" phone call where Gromov calls Zakhorovia during her morning press conference to tell her not to comment on a "ballistic missile strike on a military factory in Dnipro".
   [I.e. pretends it is a private phone call but in reality she has it deliberately set on speaker mode near the microphone]

4. Climax of the campaign: Putin threatens to strike decision making centers in Europe.

It also explains why Russia wanted to stop Ukraine's allies from giving it this permission.

The advantage of ATACMS over the slower Ukrainian drones is that they get to a target up to 300 km away in minutes instead of a couple of hours for a propellor driven drone at the speed of a fast car.

QUOTE ATACMS can be launched suddenly, requiring only minutes for deployment, making it possible for Ukraine to inflict significant damage on Russian military equipment, headquarters, personnel and arms depots, Pavel Aksyonov, a military analyst at BBC Russian, told The Moscow Times.

. Exclusive: Kremlin Stages Oreshnik Propaganda Blitz as Nuclear Threats Lose Their Potency - The Moscow Times

It then says that Russia has far fewer opportunities to increase its capabilities.

QUOTE For Putin — whose army continues to slowly advance against Ukraine’s resource-strained army through the December mud of Donbas despite suffering dramatic daily losses — the options for reciprocal escalation are much more limited.

. Exclusive: Kremlin Stages Oreshnik Propaganda Blitz as Nuclear Threats Lose Their Potency - The Moscow Times

Actually Russia's abilities to reciprocate are close to zero. Russia is already using everything it has. The only way it can get extra capabilities suddenly is to get a sudden supply of new equipment from NK or Iran but they are limited in what they can spare.

Then it talks about how the Oreshnik can't seriously be a proposal for a new weapons system.

Here the thing is that though IRBMs can carry conventional weapons - Iran uses IRBMS with conventional warheads - the Russian ones are not designed in this way. It would take them 5 to 7 years to complete a project to use an IRBM to fire conventional weapons according to a former Russian defense engineer interviewed by Moscow Times.

QUOTE STARTS

Realistically, it would take years to mass-produce the Oreshnik given the bureaucratic inefficiencies and lagging innovation that plague Russia's defense sector, a former Russian defense engineer told The Moscow Times.

"Even relatively simple, non-missile-related projects can take five to seven years to develop," the engineer said on condition of anonymity. "This strike on Ukraine seems to have been [the Oreshnik's] first test. There wouldn't be a lot of data to justify launching it into mass production."

The engineer added that Russia already has missiles similar to the Oreshnik in its arsenal, such as its base model, the RS-26 Rubezh.

The engineer also suggested that deploying an experimental weapon in a real combat scenario was likely more about influencing public opinion than showcasing new military capabilities.

. Exclusive: Kremlin Stages Oreshnik Propaganda Blitz as Nuclear Threats Lose Their Potency - The Moscow Times

The Moscow Times claim fits what most people assumed anyway - that it’s just for show

This isn’t some kind of double bluff. Russia really does do propaganda as clumsy as this. As to how it leaked, the Russians are not very good at keeping secrets. And some of this was obvious. E.g. that hot-mike moment is just an example of their clumsy obvious scripted "mistakes".

Perhaps it deceived some Russian viewers?

Ukraine IS developing lots of new weapon systems. But it keeps them as secret as possible until they are ready for use.

If a country is working on a new missile system and wants to keep it secret, it won’t test it by firing an early test missile at the people you intend to surprise with it.

Here are some reactions from Ukrainians:

Daniel Szeligowski, Head of Eastern Europe Programme & Senior Research Fellow on Ukraine, Polish Institute of International Affairs

TWEET: What a surprise (not)

dszeligowski/status/1864410318660608215

Kyiv Independent reporter Illia Ponomarenko

[THIS IS SATIRE, HE'S NOT SURPRISED AT ALL]

TWEET STARTS

WOOOOOOOOW, color me hyper-surprised.

"Four Russian officials told The Moscow Times that the Oreshnik strike and its ensuing media coverage were carefully crafted with the involvement of officials, military personnel, intelligence agencies and Kremlin PR experts.

The result was a military propaganda campaign designed to exaggerate the capabilities of the Russian military-industrial complex and the might of a new weapon.

The Oreshnik strike, which was followed by days of commentary from Russian officials, politicians and bloggers, was nothing more than a PR stunt."

. IAPonomarenko/status/1864262578567840028

Kyiv Independent run a story about it here:

TITLE: Russia’s Oreshnik strike aftermath was a carefully orchestrated psyop, media reports

Incidentally, if the NY Times are reporting this correctly, then General Gerasimov held a very rare one to one call with the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Only the 2nd such call since the war started.

It’s not clear why he rang up but part of his message was to assure his counterpart that have Oleshnik test was NOT in response to the US allowing long range strikes in Russia with ATACMS. He told his counterpart General Brown that Russia planned it long before the US gave that permission.

QUOTE STARTS

Gen. Valery V. Gerasimov, the architect of President Vladimir V. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, called President Biden’s top military adviser last week and talked about how to manage escalation concerns between the two countries, according to defense and military officials.

The rare phone call took place last Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving and just six days after Russia launched a new, nuclear-capable, intermediate-range ballistic missile at Ukraine that Mr. Putin said was in response to Ukraine’s use of American and British weapons to strike deeper into Russia.

During the call, General Gerasimov told Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, that the Oreshnik ballistic missile launch had been planned long before the Biden administration agreed to allow Ukraine to use American ATACMS to strike deeper into Russia, officials said.

. Russian General Calls U.S. Chairman of Joint Chiefs

Which rather undermines the propaganda narrative.

Why Putin does this - all he wants is for Ukraine’s allies to abandon it so he can take over Ukraine

A simple point may help some members to understand what is going on.

Putin does NOT want a nuclear war. All he wants is for Ukraine's allies to abandon it so that he can take over Ukraine.

That is the ONLY reason he says or does any of these things.

I know Putin is extraordinarily ruthless by most people's standards.

But he is a real person.

He is able to think rationally.

He has objectives, and goals.

He isn't just a cartoon character or a character from a video game or movie.

He is doing all this for a reason Because he wants to take over Ukraine.

He is NOT doing this out of pure madness.

He is careful, calculating. He didn't attack Ukraine emotionally.

He attacked Ukraine because he was 100% sure he could take over all of Ukraine in 10 days.

He made a mistake but that was his goal.

He will NOT attack NATO when he has 00% certainty that Russia LOSES.

NATO’s vast superiority over Russia - F-35 fighter jets with radar cross-section of a supersonic potato - high altitude stealth Gray Eagle drone able to drop ATACMS and Tomahawk cruise missiles with range of 2,400 km - Ukraine gets none of these

Imagine how hard it would be to defend against supersonic potatoes? That is what the Russians would see in their radars if they were fighting a NATO country with F-35s

.

When you look for one of these F-35s on radar …

This is what you see: [large potato]

Russian radar operator (imagined): “What is that on the radar? A supersonic potato?”

Billie Flyn, F-35 test pilot on what it would do in Ukraine.

It would go in and kill every surface-to-air missile threat that was out there, and neutralize all the threats on the ground, and achieve air dominance because it would kill all the air-to-air assets also. Remember: we see them, they don’t see us. It’s like playing football, when one team’s invisible, and the other team is not….

Background photos: rightmost potato from: Potato var. Linda HC1 and F-35 at Edwards

The 4th generation F-35 has a radar cross section of 0.005 square meters or about 7 cm by 7 cm, 2.8 inches by 2.8 inches similar to a large potato. It's like trying to detect supersonic potatoes in flight. The Mig-29 has a cross section of 3 square meters so about the size of a normal door. The F-16c is between the two, 1.2, smaller than a door.

Figures from here: Radar Cross Section (RCS)

Since 2022, Ukraine has been asking for the high altitude stealth Gray Eagle drone which can fly behind the front line and then deliver its “Hellfire” missiles from far too high for Russia to detect them.

But the US won’t send them. Again NATO would have those

.

TEXT ON GRAPHIC

Ukraine has asked for the high altitude stealth Grey Eagle drone since 2022.

• this could drop small precise missiles from an undetectable high alitude of 25,000 feet (7,600 meters) and fly for up to 36 hours, range of 370 km.

Any NATO country has these available from day 1.

Photo: MQ-1C Warrior (2005-08-11)

Details from: General Atomics MQ-1C Gray Eagle

Similarly they are not likely to send the veteran 1980s technology Tomahawk cruise missiles with a range of over 2,400 kilometers and a payload like the ATACMS.

TEXT ON GRAPHIC

Range of the US tomahawk cruise missile with a half ton payload like the ATACMS, travels at nearly 1000 km / hour, range 2,400 km.

Proven ability to get through Russia's S-400 system

With the current state of Russian air defences, teh US could sink the entire Russian Black Sea fleet in a few hours but doesn't give this capability to ukraine.

Details of the missile here: Tomahawk (missile) - Wikipedia

Circle drawn with this free online map circle drawing tool Radius Around a Point on a Map

Russia seems unable even to stop modified microlight hobbyist aircraft loaded with explosives! This is about how Ukraine is using modified ultralights as long range attack drones. Ukraine appears to deploy modified A-22 ultralights as suicide UAVs

s

TEXT ON GRAPHIC: Russia's air defences are so degraded that Ukraine is able to fly ultralights through them without getting shot down.

Replace pilot by explosives and remote control, and you have a drone that can evade the Russian air defences and bomb a Russian oil refinery 1000s of kilometres from Ukraine.

Yet Russia claims FALSELY it can "escalate" and win a war against not just Ukraine but NATO as well. Just bluffs and bulls**t.

Graphic shows the File:Huntair.pathfinder.arp.jpg

Replace pilot and passenger by explosives and remote control and you have a drone that can evade the Russian air defences and head off and bomb a refinery deep in Russia.

Video showing some of the drones attacking oil refineries Ukraine’s AI-enabled drones are trying to disrupt Russia’s energy industry. So far, it’s working | CNN Business Bear in mind that to do this it has flown slowly at about the speed of a fast car over Russia for many hours and not been shot down by air defences or even fighter jets.

If Ukraine had the Tomahawk, given how vulnerable the Russian warships have been since it sunk the Moskkva, Ukraine could sink the Russian ships anywhere in the Black Sea.

Russia would no longer have a Black Sea fleet the day after Ukraine got the missiles. But the US would be too worried about giving Ukraine that capability.

But even more so none of its airfields or command centers or munitions depots or fuel depots or munitions factories would be safe from Ukarine right up to 2,400 km from the front line.

Zelensky in his victory plan asked the US to give them Tomahawk cruise missiles, which NATO countries have vast numbers of, not to use during the war but as a threat to Putin to bring him to the negotiation table. The US has refused this request because they are too powerful.

QUOTE STARTS

According to Zelensky, Ukraine requested the missiles on the condition that it would deploy them only if Russia refused to end its war and de-escalate.

"I said that this is a preventive method. I was told that it is an escalation," Zelensky said.

. Zelensky calls out White House over Tomahawk missiles leak — 'it was confidential'

So Ukraine won’t get these missiles. But if Russia was ever to fight against a NATO country, they will have to face vast numbers of Tomahawks, and so on from day 1, or as soon as they can get there. There would be no deliberation about whether or not they can be permitted to use them against Russians in Russian territory to prevent the invasion if Russia was attackign a a NATO country.

The Ukrainian war wOuld never have started. There’s a reason why Russia invaded Ukraine and not the far weaker Lithuania, LafTia or Estonia Because all of those are in NATO.

For more about NATO’s vast technological advantage over Russia see my:

See my: NATO has FAR BETTER MILITARY EQUIPMENT it hasn’t sent to Ukraine - its F-35 jets with radar cross sections resembling supersonic baked potatoes would be like players in an INVISIBLE TEAM in a game of football against Russia

This is why Admiral Radakin said that there is no way that Russia attacks NATO.

Admiral Radakin’s main point is that Russia is

• more dangerous

• but less effective

than they realized before the war started. By preparing in a strong way, they make it impossible for Putin to attack NATO.

See also my quote from General Radakin her

e

Text: The biggest reason that Putin doesn’t want a conflict with NATO is because Russia will lose. And lose quickly.

[Plus bullet points below]

These are some of his points from the speech - just reformatted as bullet-points and slightly rewritten to make it clearer, e.g. repeated the word NATO for clarity.

Any Russian assault or incursion against NATO would prompt an overwhelming response.

• NATO can draw on 3.5 million uniformed personnel across the Alliance for reinforcement.

• NATO’s combat air forces outnumber Russia’s 3 to 1 –

• NATO would quickly establish air superiority.

• NATO’s maritime forces would bottle up the Russian Navy in the Barents and the Baltic,

• NATO has four times as many ships and three times as many submarines as Russia.

NATO has a

• collective GDP twenty times greater than Russia.

• total defence budget three-and-a-half times more than Russia AND China combined.

The biggest reason that Putin doesn’t want a conflict with NATO is because Russia will lose. And lose quickly

Putin expected to take between 3 days and 3 weeks.

• to subjugate Ukraine’s population.

• to take about two thirds of Ukraine’s territory.

• to stop Ukraine joining NATO and the EU.

Putin failed in ALL these strategic objectives.

• Its Air Force has failed to gain control of the air.

• Its Navy has seen 25% of its vessels in the Black Sea sunk or damaged by a country without a Navy and Ukraine’s maritime trade is reaching back to pre-war levels.

• Russia’s Army lost nearly 3,000 tanks, nearly 1500 artillery pieces and over 5,000 armoured fighting vehicles.

To pose a realistic threat to NATO’s Eastern flank within the next 2-5 years, Russia will need to

• reconstitute her tanks and armoured vehicles,

• rebuild her stocks of long-range missiles and artillery munitions and

• extract itself from a protracted and difficult war in Ukraine.

[This doesn't mean Russia would attack. This is after the war is over and NATO would always be far stronger than Russia. He means back to how it was in 2022.]

I am not saying that Russia is not dangerous

• But at the same time it is also significantly less capable than we anticipated following its disastrous illegal invasion into Ukraine.

• And it faces an even stronger straitjacket with the introduction of Finland and Sweden into NATO.

Recent talk of a Britain that is undefended, and an Armed Forces chronically imperilled, is way off the mark.

• There are always challenges in running a large organisation that conducts worldwide operations and is as sophisticated as our modern military.

• These kinds of challenges apply to militaries everywhere. But

• we have the finest people and some of the best equipment.

For longer extracts from his speech:

SHORT DEBUNK: Nothing even remotely resembling a world war situation in Ukraine now or in the future (under World War in the left panel if it doesn’t open to it)

The speech itself is here Chief of the Defence Chatham House Security and Defence Conference 2024 keynote speech

This is a graphic I did comparing Putin to a midget trying to attack a mammoth with soap bubbles:

TEXT ON GRAPHIC:

NASA, huge and powerful but very timid

Russia knows it can't use nukes in reality

Russia tiny and weak, bluffs as meaningless as soap bubbles

Even the Soviet Union had no way to win a war with nukes

Imagine if your team was invisible - how easily you could win a game of football.

That is how much better NATO's F-35 jets are than anything Russia has.

300+ F-35s (USA), 100+ F-35s (Europe).

Russia's 5th generation fighter jet is not ready for war and may never be (expensive technology to develop).

NATO's technology is vastly superior (one of many ways)

NATO: Population 967 million

[it's 631 million leaving out USA]

Russia: Population 144 million

NATO: 3.5 million soldiers

Russia: 1.32 million soldiers

Ukraine: 900,000 soldiers

US defence spending $883.7 billion, 3% of GDP

NATO European allies $380 billion, 2% of GDP

Russia: $112 billion, 6% of GDP.

Ukraine: $43.23 billion, 22.1% of GDP

Based on this image created by Dall-E via Bing Chat Generated by Microsoft Copilot

American football photo from: US Navy 090608-N-3283P-018 The Yokosuka Seahawks face off against the Yokohama Harbors during the U.S. Forces Japan-American Football league at Yokosuka Field - Wikimedia Commons

Putin head from this graphic flipped Vladimir Putin (2017-01-17)

Details for the figures on the graphic, see: For Russia to attack NATO is like a midget attacking a mammoth with soap bubbles - it can't do it

Or it’s like an ant fighting a mammoth

NOT in the world of Mutual Assured Destruction

[MID-EDIT]

We are NOT in the world of Mutual Assured Destruction. Never were if that means destroying each other’s ability to fight a conventional war.

If Putin used nukes against NATO, he has nothing like enough to stop NATO from fighting back. In the Cold War, NATO and the Soviet Union were near equals in technology. But Russia is a much weaker economy than the Soviet Union and it also has the problems of corruption siphoning a fair bit of its defence funding away into the pockets of Putin’s oligarch friends.

We found from the Ukraine war to most people’s surprise that NATO’s technology from the 1980s is still vastly superior to what Russia has. If Russia had anything like NATO’s capability it wouldn’t be stuck moving one mile a week in Eastern Donbas but would have got control of the entire Ukrainian air space on day 1 of the war.

TEXT ON GRAPHIC:

Geneva Protocol II from 1977

Must NOT target

- civilian populations

- civilian objects

- cultural objects

Ratified by all NATO countries except USA

USA in practice complies without ratifying.

US had Soviet cities as targets in 1956

- long before Geneva Protocol II

Never any possibility of toal destruction just of large numbers of casualties

- nukes can't destroy a country

- neither NATO nor the Soviet Union ever had anything like enough nukes to destroy the other side to the extent they can't fight.

This is IMPORTANT as it means PUTIN CAN'T DEFEAT NATO WITH NUKES No country ever had first strike capability.

The conventional NATO military would remain and be far superior to Russia after any exchange of nukes.

Putin would LOSE if he used nukes.

Nukes ONLY WORK AS A DETERRENT to prevent another country invading by threatening to use nukes if they do.

Under Trump and Biden, the US no longer will respond to nukes with nukes.

It more sensibly responds by using sleeper agents, conventional weapons, hacking, special ops etc to stop Russia firing more nukes.

USA and Russia do NOT have a M.A.D. doctrine (Mutually Assured Destruction)

Likely NEVER had such a doctrine though te 1950s doctrine had some similarities.

Today the USA would more rationally act to prevent Putin launching more nukes and Russia would LOSE, he couldn't stop NATO taking over Russian airspace.

Back in 1956 the target list for the US did include major Soviet cities.

But it still couldn’t have destroyed the capabilities of the Soviet Union to fight back.

Nukes are not nearly as powerful as most people think and there was NEVER any possibility even at the height of the cold war of the USA destroying the Soviet Union or the Soviet Uniondestroying the USA to the extent that conventional fighting would stop.

The USA was far more evenly matched with the Soviet Union. But now with the huge technological gap between Russia and NATO - no matter what happened in a nuclear exchange between the USA and Russia, the USA conventional forces would remain vastly superior to the Russian conventional forces and would quickly take over Russian air space.

Indeed under Trump's first term and under Biden, the previous policy was changed to one that is far more flexible with the focus now on non nuclear responses to a nuke.

More sensibly and rationally the USA would respond to a Russian nuke by making sure Russia can't fire any more nukes at the USA. This is US policy but presumably NATO policy is similar.

Although the details are top secret, I very much doubt their ICBM silos are protected much against conventional missiles now. And the F-35 fighter jet is so stealthy that the Iranians simply didn't see them with their Russian S-300 systems. In that Israeli raid the F-35s destroyed ALL three of Iran's S-300s with the greatest of ease.

Never saw them coming.

From Ukraine’s successes in targeting the S-500 in Ukraine, it's pretty clear that even the Russian S-500 couldn't see them either. It is a big challenge to spot a supersonic baked potato and figure out that it is an F-35 fighter jet and then try to hit it.

Russia's Su-57 is nowhere near as stealthy.

This is a change that started under Trump and continued under Biden. It makes it less likely for the US to need to resort to nukes itself. Because it would respond with its very precise conventional missiles and non conventional non nuclear methods like sabotage, hacking etc instead.

This is about Biden's nuclear posture review:

QUOTE STARTS

Although the integration of nuclear and conventional capabilities into strategic deterrence planning has been underway for years, the NPR seeks to deepen it further. It “underscores the linkage between the conventional and nuclear elements of collective deterrence and defense” and adopts “an integrated deterrence approach that works to leverage nuclear and non-nuclear capabilities to tailor deterrence under specific circumstances.”

This is not only intended to make deterrence more flexible and less nuclear focused when possible, but it also continues the strategy outlined in the 2010 NPR and 2013 Nuclear Employment Guidance to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons by relying more on new conventional capabilities.

Beyond force structure issues, this effort also appears to be a way to “raise the nuclear threshold” by reducing reliance on nuclear weapons but still endure in regional scenarios where an adversary escalates to limited nuclear use. In contrast, the 2018 NPR sought low-yield non-strategic “nuclear supplements” for such a scenario, and specifically named a Russian so-called “escalate-to-deescalate” scenario as a potentially possibility for nuclear use.

https://fas.org/publication/the-biden-administrations-nuclear-posture-review/

More details here: https://dddrafts.substack.com/p/draft-why-we-do-not-risk-a-world#%C2%A7us-has-moved-beyond-mutual-assured-destruction-to-more-rationally-respond-to-a-nuclear-attack-by-preventing-russia-from-launching-more-nukes-with-precision-strikes-with-conventional-weapons-etc

The USA was far more evenly matched with the Soviet Union. But now with the huge technological gap between Russia and NATO - no matter what happened in a nuclear exchange between the USA and Russia, the USA conventional forces would remain vastly superior to the Russian conventional forces and would quickly take over Russian air space.

Indeed under Trump's first term and under Biden, the previous policy was changed to one that is far more flexible with the focus now on non nuclear responses to a nuke.

More sensibly and rationally the USA would respond to a Russian nuke by making sure Russia can't fire any more nukes at the USA. This is US policy but presumably NATO policy is similar.

This is far less scary for easily scared people. Because you can see that Putin would just LOSE if he initiated a nuclear war. What's more it would be one -sided. Putin would fire some nukes and wouldn't be able to hide it from his people - and then the Russian air space would be taken over by NATO most likely. Of course I have no idea of what the secret plans are. But with the stealth F-35s NATO does have the capability to take over Russian air space and I'd be surprised if that doesn't happen early on in their plans.

Russia is NOT IN ANY WAY PREPARING TO USE NUKES

See my blog post here:

SEE ALSO

also

also

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