Russia launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) against Dnipro, east Ukraine on the morning of Nov. 21, Kyiv’s Air Force reported. If confirmed, it would be the first time the Kremlin has used such a weapon in an attack on Ukraine.
In the early hours of Nov. 21, a country-wide air raid alert sounded due to the threat of ballistic missiles, and later, the launch of several Russian Tu-95MS bomber aircraft. According to Ukraine’s Air Force, the attack targeted the city of Dnipro using a number of different missile types. “In particular, an intercontinental ballistic missile was launched from the Astrakhan region of the Russian Federation, an Kh-47M2 ‘Kinzhal’ aeroballistic missile from a MiG-31K fighter jet was launched from the Tambov region, and seven Kh-101 cruise missiles were fired from Tu-95MS strategic bombers,” the report said. The report did not specify what type of ICBM was launched. Astrakhan Oblast is located in southern Russia, over 700 kilometers (435 miles) east of Dnipro. The region borders Kazakhstan, Russia’s Kalmykia Republic, Volgograd Oblast, and the Caspian Sea.
An industrial enterprise was damaged, and two fires broke out in the city, Governor Serhii Lysak said. A rehabilitation center for people with disabilities was damaged in the attack, Mayor Borys Filatov said. At least two people are reported to have been injured. Ukraine’s Air Force said six of the Kh-101 missiles were reportedly shot down, but did not say if the reported ICBM had caused any of the damage in Dnipro.
Russia regularly uses close, and short range ballistic missiles in aerial attacks against Ukraine, but ICBMs are far larger, can be equipped with nuclear payloads, and are designed to hit targets at far longer ranges. Ballistic missiles are rocket-powered and are launched high into the atmosphere before arcing back down onto their target. They’re only guided during the initial stages of launch, so they can be less accurate than cruise missiles, but have the advantage of reaching incredibly high speeds — sometimes more than 3,200 kilometers per hour — as they approach their targets. Crucially, ballistic missiles also have a very long range — anything from around 1,000 kilometers, up to over 5,000 kilometers, in the case of ICBMs. Until now, Russia has used several models of shorter-range ballistic missiles, including the Iskander and the Kinzhal. Due to their high speed, only certain air defense systems are capable of shooting them down, the U.S.-made Patriot system being one of them.
This has yet to be confirmed, but on Nov. 20 Ukrainian media reported that Russia was preparing to test, or launch, an RS-26 Rubezh medium-range ICBM. The Rubezh is reported to have a range of up to 6,000 kilometers, can carry four warheads each with an estimated payload of 0.3 megatons.
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.” Hoffman adds that the Rubezh is equipped with a MIRV payload, which stands for Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles. Purported footage of the attack shows multiple projectiles hitting the ground, but without the large explosions normally associated with conventional missiles or payloads. “So this strike is not for military value, this is purely, purely for political purposes,” he added.
What are those political purposes? The attack came in the wake of what appeared to be Ukraine’s first successful strike of a military target inside Russia using the U.S.-supplied ATACMS missiles. After depicting such a move as crossing another “red line” the Kremlin had drawn, Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country would respond. “They probably considered testing a nuclear warhead, which was also rumored to happen soon, but decided that’s too intense, and that could invite too much backlash, especially from partners, such as China and India,” Hoffman said. “And then they probably thought that this is the next best option, because it sends a clear signal to the West, while potentially not antagonizing critical international partners.” Hoffman added he expects this was a one-off rather than a new strategy from the Kremlin, given he estimates the cost of one Rubezh to be north of $10 million, making continued attacks highly cost-ineffective.
What has Kyiv, Moscow said? As well as the original Air Force statement, in the early afternoon of Nov. 21, President Volodymyr Zelensky said an examination was taking place to determine the exact type of missile, but “all characteristics” of the strike had “intercontinental ballistic capabilities.” “We can see that Putin is using Ukraine as a training ground,” he added.
Russia conversely, has said very little about the attack. When asked if Moscow had fired an ICBM, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters he had “nothing to say on this topic.” In a video clip widely shared in the media, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova received a phone call during a press conference apparently asking her not to comment on reports about “ballistic missile strikes.” Zakharova later claimed she was merely asking “experts whether this was our topic,” and the “answer came during the briefing: the Foreign Ministry does not comment. There is no conspiracy.”
What has the international community said? Russia using an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) against Ukraine would be a “clear escalation” by Moscow, EU foreign affairs spokesperson Peter Stano told reporters on Nov. 21. “While we’re assessing the full facts, it’s obvious that such (an) attack would mark yet another clear escalation from the side of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin,” Stano said, according to AFP. Elsewhere, the BBC reported that three anonymous Western officials has said the attack was carried out using ballistic missiles, rather than ICBMs.
How can Ukraine intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles? 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.
Comment: Sure the “Kyiv Independent” is far from an uninterested party, but the report tracks with what’s being reported elsewhere. Of course it was a political signal. The use of a MIRVed ballistic missile with no warheads, just weight simulators, had no real military effect. The Kremlin could have used a long range catapult launching big rocks for a similar military effect. But it was a signal that Moscow was ready to escalate. Just to retain some semblance of face, they had to do something. As an indication that they did not go bat shit crazy, it appears that they warned the US that they would be launching an ICBM before doing so. They still don’t want to cross the nuclear threshold.
Whether the RS-26 Rubezh is a true ICBM or an intermediate range ballistic missile is immaterial. It was a MIRVed ballistic missile that nothing in the current Ukrainian arsenal can stop. What can stop them? The Aegis Ashore installations in Poland and Romania are too far west to be within range. We could move a THAAD battery or the Army’s new Typhon Weapon System into Ukraine, but that would be putting US troops into Ukraine. And we don’t have many of those systems. The AIM-174B launched from an F/A-18 Hornet is another impractical solution. Whether any of these solutions would even be seriously considered depends on how often Russia plans on launching these MIRVed ballistic missiles at Ukraine and whether Russia can develop a conventional warhead for these missiles.
TTG
Ukraine’s GUR has already responded by sending drones to attack Kapustin Yar where that RS-26 Rubbish was launched from. No BDA yet.
How many of those RS-26 IRBMs does Putin have? They reportedly froze production on those back a decade ago in order to transfer the funding to their Avangard Mach 27 glide vehicle.
Russia has responded to Ukraine’s response with glide washing machines targeted at Ukrainian intelligence. These washing machines use new enhanced 2-cycle cleaning (I have this from Telegram). Buzz on X is that data for targeting Ukrainian intelligence were hard to establish. Ukrainians could be distinguished from rocks. But versus hydroponic farms, algorithms were equivocal. Russians chose to home in on body odor.
Drifter –
Good news and bad. On the good side perhaps those Ukrainian babushky will get their washing machines back.
On the bad side, I’m in trouble if they home in on BO. Going to have to take showers with real soap instead of my morning routine using baby wipeys for face, neck, ears, pits & crotch, AKA a whore’s bath.
How many? Nobody knows.
But if he wants to concentrate the minds of Sir Keir Starmer and Little Napoleon Macron then he only needs two.
RS-26 target in Dnipro was apparently the Yuzhmash plant that manufactures Ukraine’s Hrim-2 SRBM.
https://x.com/maxseddon/status/1859544789160546750
And to think that not a single apartment building was targeted. Almost like you couldn’t jam our counteract these things. Any message sent by that, other than Russia is already defeated and Putin should surrender before Trump is inaugurated?
Fred –
The Rubezh or Orezhnik or whaever it was may have been aimed that way but it never hit the Yuzhmash plant. I’m not surprised since it has a 500 meter CEP. They did hit an old folks home there though.
“I’m not surprised since it has a 500 meter CEP.”
Based on what information, exactly?
This missile released six MIRV warheads of apparently completely new design, so I am going to suggest that your claimed knowledge of the CEP is … bogus, to put it mildly.
Leith,
The Ukrainians have a weapons factory in an urban area? What are all those people, human shields? But not to worry, Russia was defeated two years ago and any day now they will 25th amendment Putin or something.
Not true Fred –
The rehabilitation center for people with disabilities that got damaged is a long way from Yuzhmash plant. And it’s not yet clear to me whether it was damaged by the Oreshnik blast or from one of the seven KH-101 Raduga cruise missiles that also were used on Dnipro that day?
You should stop making stuff up.
Leith,
I’ll stop the wild guesses in the war Ukraine won two years ago.
“I’m not surprised since it has a 500 meter CEP.”
How far off from 500 meters was the impact?
Fred –
You obviously meant to write the three-day war that Putin won a thousand days ago.
Fred –
Based on this Russian warbloggers account the impact was 1000 meters off target.
Seems like that 500 meter CEP estimate was way overstated.
Leith,
Here is what Russia says – “On November 21, the Russian Armed Forces struck the Yuzhmash plant with Oreshnik (hazel) ballistic missile in its nuclear-free hypersonic mode. The target was successfully struck. Russian attack was a response to U.S. plans to produce intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles at the targeted industrial facility in Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin clarified that Russia has successfully tested a new medium–range missile Oreshnik in combat conditions. No missile defense systems, including US systems deployed in Europe, are able to intercept such Russian missiles as the Oreshnik, which attack targets at a speed of 2-3 km per second. Russia promised to warn civilians in advance in the event of the use of such systems.”
So NATO + Ukraine were building missiles to strike deep into Russia and Russia busted out a new hypersonic missile to raze the Ukrainian factory that would produce those missiles.
It’s war.
Meanwhile Zelensky is sky screaming about ICBMs and western analysts are seeing aggressive “signals” in the chicken entrails.
Eric –
Oreshnik is just a recently modified Rubezh. If they attempt to use it on the West, then THAADs or SM-3s will take it out.
Err, no, not true at all.
The claim that western air defense missiles have been able to successfully engage Kinzhal missiles is because those missiles have slowed down to high-supersonic speed in the terminal phase, and so can be engaged in that very narrow window of opportunity.
I have already expressed my view of that claim to TTG i.e. the air defense systems are actually engaging the six decoys that the Kinzhal deploys in the terminal portion of its flight, but I’m going to leave that aside for now.
The point is that this “modified Pubezh” doesn’t allow even that possibility, because the MIRV warheads are still going at hypersonic speed when they hit the target.
There is *nothing* in US arsenal can engage a missile that is still hypersonic in the terminal phase: not a THAAD, and not an SM-3.
https://united24media.com/war-in-ukraine/rs-26-rubezh-oreshnik-or-kedr-which-missile-did-russia-fire-at-ukraine-3945
“Its known specifications include:
Six warheads, each carrying six submunitions.
A terminal phase speed exceeding Mach 11.”
Read that last line again, leith. There is exactly zero chance that a THAAD or an SM-3 can intercept a warhead that is still doing Mach 11 as it hits the target.
Absolutely, positively, zero chance of an intercept.
https://www.ukrinform.ua/rubric-ato/3930029-rosiani-zavdali-udaru-po-dnipru-balisticnou-raketou-jmovirno-z-kompleksu-kedr-gur.html
“Six warheads were installed on the missile, and each was equipped with six submunitions. The speed on the final section of the trajectory is more than Mach 11.”
Now, so sorry leith, but there is no chance at all that a THAAD or an SM-3 is going to “take out” 36 warheads that are still travelling at Mach 11 when they hit the ground.
Zero chance.
Zip. Nada.
YR –
MIRV’s will indeed make it tough. It’s going to depend on many factors. The biggest factor will be the number of THAAD and SM-3 loads available, or even the SM-6. Definitely not enough to defend against multiple Orezhniks, but how many of those are available? “US officials note that the missile is still experimental and Russia only has a few in its possession, and that it is unlikely to be regularly deployed against Ukraine.[3]”
Plus Mach 11 is damned slow. Kinzhal missiles, that can reach up to Mach 10, have been shot down by Patriot. Plus Russia is not the only country with hypersonics. Both the US AFGC & the French Force de Frappe ballistic missiles routinely reach Mach 25 during tests.
But the whole argument is hypothetical. The more important question is whether or not the Gay Hussar has the cojones to use Oreshnik to attack Warsaw or London?
Y&R,
Agreed with the terminal phase.
But THAAD is not designed to do that, THAAD intercepts should be at exo/endo phase, if at all.
A layer defense would rely on a combination of THAADs, SM-3, and Patriots.
Given the performance of the Patriot system, and the speed of the MIRV warheads, it has no chance at the terminal phase.
leith: “Plus Mach 11 is damned slow.”
That is delusional hopium, leith.
leith: “Kinzhal missiles, that can reach up to Mach 10, have been shot down by Patriot.”
No, it hasn’t. But even the claim that it has relies entirely on the argument that the Kinzhal slows to high-subsonic in the terminal phase.
They MIRVs don’t – they are doing Mach 11 all the way down to the target.
NOTHING the USA possesses has any chance of intercepting them.
NOTHING.
TonyL: “THAAD intercepts should be at exo/endo phase”
Tony, mull the fact that the USA felt compelled to rename THAAD so that it now stands for TERMINAL High Altitude Area Defence.
https://missilethreat.csis.org/system/thaad/
Yeah, Right,
THaaD has hit both exo and endo ballistic targets.
I knew Ukraine was always going to lose but had no idea western Europe would be the biggest losers, especially Germany. This will all be over when Trump takes over and gets these bitter old eastern European relic people pushed out of the Federal government for good. The Blinkens, Nuland types.
It can’t come soon enough. All those folks need to go back to their ancestral homelands.
This looks like ISW/Ukrainian BS designed to stir the pot. They’ve done it before. Screaming “ICBM” is just so much more crying wolf out of those guys; a desperate attempt to keep the western money and materiel flowing now that Trump has been elected.
Russia sending a signal?
Who didn’t know that Russia has ICBMs and intermediate range ballistic missiles that Ukraine can’t shoot down?
The Russians don’t have enough of those missiles, whatever they are, to win the war with standard HE warheads. In fact, it is a very expensive and inefficient delivery system for conventional explosives. So go ahead and use them up. The only signal it sends is that Russia is weak and desperate – if there is any truth to the story; which is doubtful. OTOH, Russia has been threatening use of nukes for some time, allegedly. So how is hitting Ukraine with a non-nuke missile of some kind bolstering the threat of nuclear deployment? Someone is going to have to explain the game theory and psychology behind that little theory. I sure don’t see it.
But it wasn’t an ICBM or anything like an ICBM.
This seems like a simple, normal (for war) face-value situation getting hyped into the stratosphere by Zelensky and neocons and assorted other Russia haters of strange stripes. Putin says Russia has a new kind of intermediate range ballistic missiles and it is going to be deployed, with conventional warheads, against Ukraine. He will even warn targeted areas so civilians can clear out.
Well, that’s war – and none of it should be shocking to anyone. Counters are developed and deployed and then new stuff is invented to defeat the counters and so on and so forth. If this war has been anything, it has been a learning experience for participants and observers alike. So Russia has developed a new missile (not an ICBM) that the US – I mean Ukraine – can’t shoot down. I would have bet that was coming if someone had offered some odds.
How anyone can be honestly perplexed and alarmed by this development – emphasis on honestly – escapes me entirely? Maybe they should have a little more respect for Russian capabilities.
IMO, just another bargaining chip being laid on table for the peace talks coming prior to this Spring.
Hi Mr. Newhill thank you for your outstanding observation regarding the missile strike by Russia. I think it is a game of escalation dominance so when President Biden and Great Britain approved of launch of missiles into Russia President Putin showed them that both can play the same game and he will respond according to the damage done to Russian Federation. So far these Western missiles have caused minimal damage. If the western leaders go further then we can safely assume that a strike on western interests by Russia is a foregone conclusion. This is really a stupid game to play when we have armed to the teeth nuclear powers. We the people are powerless and so much for the vaunted democracy. Thanks
My take is that the message isn’t the missile itself, but the ability of the MIRV warheads to penetrate deep underground, even without a nuclear payload.
So the message is a personal one for the European poodles: if shit really does get real then we intent to kill each one of you, no matter how deep your bunker is.
To, in short, “Nasrallah” Sir Keir and the Little Napoleon if they insist on programming those storm shadows and Scalp cruise missiles.
YR,
Yep – 30 kilos of Tungsten or depleted Uranium going Mach 11 will hit like a meteorite.
BTW – what is the damage on the ground? Are there meteorite type craters?
Who knows, since we don’t seem to be getting those timely satellite photos that we get whenever the Ukrainians hit anything of note.
Must be the clouds. Yeah, that’d by why…
Yeah, Right,
Russian blogger Romanov_92 published a post-strike photo
“November 24, 2024
Dnipro, Ukraine
Satellite images of Yuzhmash, which was struck by the “Oreshnik” missile, have surfaced.
The workshops are intact; nothing has been “reduced to dust.” However, it seems the private residential area above took some damage.”
https://x.com/wartranslated/status/1860703851155693902
In other words, the Oreshnik missed by a thousand meters.
TTG,
” the Oreshnik missed by a thousand meters.”
Why, intercepted, bad navigational equipment, jammed signals? Or something simple like the map they used was wrong? (I believe we blew up a Chinese embassy somewhere during the Clinton administration that way) Kind of like Rand McNally purposely putting small errors in their atlases in the ’50s so precision targeting wouldn’t be that precise. Not that 1/2 mile matters much with a megaton payload.
Fred –
The Soviets built the plant, so you’d think the Kremlin would have the coordinates. I’m betting it was a lousy missile guidance system: GLONASS or maybe they put a handheld Garmin GPS in the nose like their pilots used in Syria.
TTG: “In other words, the Oreshnik missed by a thousand meters.”
So why is the plant still closed for business?
And why is the only satellite photo of such a s**ty quality, when the satellite photos of Ukrainian strikes on Russian arsenals of such exquisite quality?
I’ll wait till there are better satellite images, if it’s all the same to you.
For what it is worth…
https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/ukraine-russia-war-11-21-24#cm3r5sq6v00053b6msy7twfcv
“A Western official has said that the missile launched by Russia as part of an attack on the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro was a ballistic missile, but not an intercontinental ballistic missile.”
Very cool video of this attack online.
But back to the escalation ladder – hasn’t the US run out of rungs lower than direct involvement? Isn’t that the real message of the anti-personal landmine decision? Russia still has biggies: national mobilization is one I can think of. And nukes to take our artificial satellites is another. These sorts of escalations are not matchable by the US. Russia seems to have held off until the US has shot its wad.
N.B. Russia still needs to score a hole-in-one on the first try to “win” this conflict.
The Russian catapults and shovels will be no match for what Latvia and NATO’s eastern flank bring to bear. Even if the Orcs destroy Ukraine, I doubt they have the resolve to neutralize our superb defences in the baltics. Even the Houthis, don’t take the Russians seriously… Derp.
https://x.com/SprinterFamily/status/1859698512868638842
I feel horrible for many people these days. Specifically those who truly believed masks, 6ft distancing and vaccines would work. Also those who thought Ukraine could actually win.
God knows I have tried to help them sort through their delusions but to no avail. I have finally accepted that people will believe what they want to believe even after getting smacked upside the head with reality several times. It is a hopeless situation. It’s best to let them continue believing what they want to believe and move on.
Ditto…
Babelthuap,
Big government is their god and mainstream media is the prophet. No way little ole you or me can compete with those forces to sway the sheep they have captured.
Oreshnik is just one more missile out of the 10,000 already dumped on Ukraine by Putin. Including not only Russian missiles but also North Korean and Iranian. “Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion in 2022, Russia has already used about 10,000 ballistic and cruise missiles and over 14,000 strike drones against Ukraine.”
https://x.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1859711905138671756
So now because of missile strikes in Russia, Putin is so angry his panties are in a twist. His buddies in the Kremlin are soon going to restrain him or drop him out of a window.
Leith,
Yep. That’s how I see it too. A big nothing-burger in terms of WW3
Just one more missile. But in the end there will be a last missile. Just like a bullet splattering the head of a Latthuonian mercenary might be the last bullet. Or an American land mine might blow up a Russian farmer in 2078. Or agents will find out what’s in your underwear drawer.
Leith you may want to consult with US Navy commander who pulled out the Carrier Strike Group from the Red sea after Huthi threats (real or imagined nevertheless we pulled the Group) So the question arises if we can’t even face down the Huthi’s in their sandals what are our chances against the Russians? May be we should read about Napolean and Hitler’s history and how they turned out for them before we embark on our adventures. Thanks
M.R.
We can easily destroy the Houthis – and any of the other backwards, sandal wearing, women stoning, boy raping, head choppers. It is not a lack of might or ability that prevents decisive victory. Rather it is gay and loser ROEs imposed on the military by degenerate politicians and degenerate anti-US leftists (lots of overlap between the two groups).
Mr. Rao –
That Carrier Strike Group returned to Naval Station Norfolk after a nine-month combat deployment. It’s aircraft from had expended a large percentage of their air-to-air missiles and air-to-surface weapons. The accompanying ships in the Strike Group had expended much of their SAMs. It was time to go home, reload, and give the sailors some time with their families.
I actually admire those Houthis in sandals, the real ones doing the fighting, not the phony ones in suits pushing the propaganda.
I’ve read how Suvorov gutted Napoleon’s Army, and I’ve read how the Soviet Army (including Ukrainians, Armenians, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Turkomen, Tajiks, Georgians, Moldovans, Balts, etc) defeated Hitler. By the way, they had help from the West in both cases. I would bet that many in the Pentagon and NATO have also. We’ll never invade Russia. NATO is a Defensive,/i> Alliance, not Offensive. The Kremlin is the one that likes to invade other nations.
1. President Putin setting out the Russian response. I expect if it were technically possible we’d be banned from listening to speeches from across the new Iron Curtain. Still possible so far though. Video and transcript:-
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/75614
“Our decision on further deployment of intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles will depend on the actions of the United States and its satellites.”
“… We consider ourselves entitled to use our weapons against military facilities of those countries that allow to use their weapons against our facilities, and in case of an escalation of aggressive actions, we will respond decisively and in mirror-like manner. I recommend that the ruling elites of the countries that are hatching plans to use their military contingents against Russia seriously consider this.”
I do wish the Euros would listen to Putin, instead of just shaking their fists at him.
2. Alexander Mercouris and Patrick Henningsen reporting on the mood in Hungary. When it comes to the war Orban’s officials, as far as I know the only ones in Europe bar the Slovaks not in the terminal stages of TDS, seem to have their heads screwed on OK:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2LATjQEXio&ab_channel=AlexanderMercouris
They met one Hungarian official who stated the war was about retaining Western hegemony. Boris Johnson also said recently, in almost the same words, that if we lose this war it will mean the end of Western hegemony. I recollect some American politicians saying much the same. Pity that the unfortunate Ukrainians had to provide the battleground.
3. “Simplicius” looking at SS in more detail and bringing in a range of views and information. After 21st February 2022 I noticed the West was divided between those who saw centuries of European/Western domination of the planet coming to an end rather more quickly than expected, and those who didn’t. Orban, from the statement quoted here, firmly in the first group.
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/thunderbolt-from-the-skies-putins
Wonder how we’ll get on, now we no longer have carte blanche to loot the planet.
TTG,
“Of course it was a political signal. The use of a MIRVed ballistic missile with no warheads, just weight simulators, had no real military effect. ”
It has a lot of real military effect. It’s a warning shot. I’d bet the THAAD guys are working furiously to simulate this IRBM to see if it can defense against this new weapon system. Patriot is garbage (a Raytheon cash cow). Only THAAD or SM-3 has a fighting chance, and the probablity is not great.
TonyL,
THAAD has been successfully intercepting ballistic missile targets since 2006. It’s had a 100% success rate so far.
TTG,
We just don’t have enough of THAAD, it’s too expensive. That’s what I meant by “the probability is not great”.
TonyL,
That I agree with. We put one in Israel, but that’s in expectation of a 100+ ballistic missile attack from Iran.
How many tests involves a maneuvering ballistic missile targets?
About zero, I’d say….
Yeah, Right,
Don’t know. Targets were only listed as SRBM, MRBM and IRBM. I also doubt they were maneuvering targets.
They also point out that these are “simulated” ballistic missiles dropped out of the back of a transport plane before firing.
That they don’t mention maneuvering (and, also, don’t ever appear to list the speed that the target missile is going) suggests to me that the tests are, ahem, more than a little rigged for effect.
YR,
Or what you are allowed to read on the internet about these things is…ahem…more than a little rigged for effect.
Deliberate misinformation and f’ing idiot reporters getting it wrong are both real things in the real world.
TTG, Ted Postol seems to differ with you. He says THAAD has no change against these missiles. But hell, what does he know, right?
Razor,
It was also proclaimed (not by Postol that I know of) that the Patriot had no chance of taking out the invincible Kinzhal. Reality proved and continues to prove the opposite. But like the Patriot, there is no guarantee THAAD will take out every MIRVed ballistic missile. But to say it has no chance is misinformed bravado.
TonyL/TTG This is a video of the discussion between Nima and Ted Postol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8LvIkGkfes
Everyone REALLY needs to look at the 29:00 mark showing the launch of this missile and its boost stage.
The damn thing is going parallel to the ground. It is NOT following a ballistic path, it is gliding inside the atmosphere at Mach 10 and above.
There is *no* exo-atmospheric phase for an attempt at intercept.
There is *no* part of the flight path that is slower than hypersonic
There is *no* chance that anything in the US inventory can intercept this thing.
This is something completely and totally different, and the west has zero defense against it.
Zero.
THAAD? Not a chance.
SM-3? Not possible.
Anything and everything that the Russians point this at will be destroyed, and Washington and Brussels keep insisting on poking the Russians in the ribs.
Insane. Completely and utterly insane.
Yeah, Right,
If this is the flight path of the missile that struck Dnipro, it is a revolutionarily new weapon, one that flies horizontally like a cruise missile and the drops MIRV warheads vertically at mach 11 over the target. Western intel would know if this was the same missile or something else.
YR / TTG –
Atmospheric skip is an old concept first noted by WW2 German rocket scientists. It’s been in use by many countries that have developed ballistic missiles with MARVs, like the old Pershing II. The concept is now used by hypersonic glide vehicles i.e. Avangaard, China’s DF-VZ, France’s VMAX, and various US developmental models.
Y&R,
Thanks for the video of Ted Postol discussion .
Unfortunately yes, I think THAAD has a slim to none chance of successful intercept this new weapon.
Not vertically, TTG. Watch the video: Postol explains that the MIRV warheads are coming down at an angle of around 27 degrees to the vertical, which is indicative of the distance from the target of the separation of the warheads from the main rocket.
You don’t need “Western intel” to tell you that this is the missile that hit Dnipro. Nima and Postol share three separate videos of this missile (one that Postol hadn’t seen before) and it is clear from the video that this is a multi-stage missile that is wrapped in the beginnings of a plasma shield.
You can clearly see the missile inside that plasma cloud.
…”or something else”….
!!!!! Santa’s sleigh, perhaps?
YR –
There is no way that missile going parallel to the ground in the lower atmosphere. Postol’s video does not show that. When visiting grandkids on the Central Cali coast I’ve seen launches from Vandenberg that also appear to be parallel to the ground, but they’re not. I’m told it’s an optical illusion from when the launch vehicle curves away from vertical at high altitudes. Postol knows this, or should. He’s selling wolf tickets as Fast Eddie would say. It didn’t happen as Postol claims, unless it’s one of those waverider cruise missiles, but those can’t reach anywhere near the Mach 11 that you claim. And why is Postol claiming Baikonur in Kazakhstan is the launch site? The sites I’ve seen say it was launched from Kapustin Yar in Russia’s Astrakhan Oblast.
leith: “There is no way that missile going parallel to the ground in the lower atmosphere.”
What’s your definition of “lower atmosphere”, leith?
“And why is Postol claiming Baikonur in Kazakhstan is the launch site?”
Because he is an expert, perhaps?
“The sites I’ve seen say it was launched from Kapustin Yar in Russia’s Astrakhan Oblast.”
You don’t say? I’ve seen people say it was an ICBM, only it turned out they were wrong.
YR –
Let’s turn that first question around. What altitude are you and Postol theorizing that missile flew at?
Postol, expert or not, is wrong. He only postulated Baikonur because the one video of the launch was taken from across the border in Kazakhstan not far from the border with Astrakhan Oblast where Kapustin Yar is.
Leith, waverider cruise missile???
I was wondering about Y.R.’s “parallel to the ground” statement based on a video. Thanks. I don’t think Postol said that.
LeanDer –
Waveriders: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waverider
I don’t think Postol said it was flying “parallel to the ground” either. But YR seems to believe he did. Or maybe I read him wrong?
Postol (29:38 mark) “And you can see the contrails shows you that this thing is travelling VERY CLOSE TO PARALLEL WITH THE GROUND because it’s skipping along the Earth’s atmosphere. It is using lift from the Earth.”
Postol (30:48 mark) “There it is, it is a hypersonic vehicle it’s travelling and that’s a better shot – good that’s good too – and you can see this thing did a twist upward and then it probably it tips over over time and it’s launched to a high velocity ROUGHLY PARALLEL TO THE EARTH and it’s just gliding with lift after it’s been given a velocity of about three and a half kilometers per second”
I do not know why I bother to provide links when nobody can be bothered to watch the links.
leith: “Let’s turn that first question around. What altitude are you and Postol theorizing that missile flew at?”
I’m not the rocket scientist, leith. But Postol is, and he knows for a fact that the missile is travelling at three and a half kilometers per second.
He also knows that it is using the Earth’s atmosphere to provide lift.
So the answer to your question is “low enough that the Earth’s atmosphere is providing lift”
leith: “He only postulated Baikonur because the one video of the launch was taken from across the border in Kazakhstan ”
There are three videos shown in that link, leith.
Two from Postol, one from Nima.
Y&R,
“Postol (29:38 mark) “And you can see the contrails shows you that this thing is travelling VERY CLOSE TO PARALLEL WITH THE GROUND because it’s skipping along the Earth’s atmosphere. It is using lift from the Earth.””
Yes. It’s going too fast and skipped at the edge of the atmosphere. It did not go exo-atmospheric, so there was no exo-endo phase.
And knowing Russian hypersonic missiles can maneuver, I don’t think THAAD can intercept Hazel vehicle and its warheads. You could have a bunch of THAAD batteries launching at the same time and get a lucky shot, though. But that’s the same as failed, because there are 36 warheads, IIRC.
BTW, THAAD name change from “Theater” to “Terminal” was for marketing purpose, IMO.
YR –
If Postol is saying that the missile a
was doing an atmospheric skip in and out of the atmosphere, then I’d tend to agree. That is a common method when employing Maneuvering Reentry Vehicles. But it’s an old concept, nothing new and advanced. And it is both exo-atmospheric and Endo. Hence the Skip designation.
leith, lots of “concepts” are “old”.
After all, Buck Rogers had the “concept” of laser hand guns back in the 1950s.
If Postol is saying that the missile a was doing an atmospheric skip in and out of the atmosphere, then I’d tend to agree.
Leith, direct link after some administrative preparation two similar videos by Ted Postol & Nima Alkhorshid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8LvIkGkfes&t=1710s
The contrails are quite fascinating. It appeared lower to me then up in the ???thermo/exosphere??? If that’s where it has to be for an atmospheric skip and movement parallel to the earth’s surface. Wiki image from the article linked below:
https://tinyurl.com/atmospheric-skip
So the claim is, it is some type of variation on the much talked about Avangard, which is an ICBM?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-ballistic_atmospheric_entry
Non-ballistic atmospheric entry is a class of atmospheric entry trajectories that follow a non-ballistic trajectory by employing aerodynamic lift in the high upper atmosphere. It includes trajectories such as skip and glide.[1][2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-ballistic_atmospheric_entry
leith: “That is a common method when employing Maneuvering Reentry Vehicles. ”
Listen to Postol again. He is saying there is no “reentry vehicle” because the entire missile remains within the atmosphere throughout the entirety of its flight.
That must be true, because he stipulates that the first stage accelerates the missile to Mach 11 and then it uses the atmosphere to provide lift to give it the necessary range to strike the target.
It can’t do that in space. And if it doesn’t go “into space” then these can’t be “reentry vehicles”
YR –
Both you and TonyL quote Postol as saying the Oreshnik was “skipping along the Earth’s atmosphere”. That indicates to me the missile was doing an atmospheric skip in and out of the atmosphere, as I said above. Postol is well aware what the term skipping means. So I’ll agree with him on that. But not on Oreshnik invulnerability. Yes, Oreshnik is quasi-ballistic and can maneuver during flight. So can ATACMS, India’s Shaurya, Israel’s LORA, and Russia’s Iskander (which have been shot down).
By the way, all the bumpf here about Oreshnik do not matter. Ballistic and cruise missiles launched from Kaliningrad are a bigger threat to Europe.
leith: “Yes, Oreshnik is quasi-ballistic and can maneuver during flight. So can ATACMS, India’s Shaurya, Israel’s LORA, and Russia’s Iskander (which have been shot down).”
Postol very clearly and very explicitly says that you are talking nonsense.
Postol (11:34 mark) “well I was completely surprised by it this is CLEARLY A NEW SYSTEM I HAD NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE IT so I had to sit down and really try to understand what I was seeing in the videos”
Postol (31:30 mark) “so we now have AN ABSOLUTELY NEW WEAPON that’s been introduced by the Russians to I believe to demonstrate to the Americans that you’re not the only game in town you’ve got a couple of years of development to do BEFORE YOU CAN DO WHAT WE JUST SHOWED YOU”
leith: “But not on Oreshnik invulnerability.”
You are whistling in the dark, leith.
The missile was doing Mach 11 as it left Russian air space, and it was doing Mach 11 when it smacked into that Ukrainian factory.
Where, exactly, does it slow down enough in its flight-path to be “intercept-able” to anything that the USA or its allies have in service or in development?
Perhaps when it stops off at the pub on its way to its destination?
It STARTS at Mach 11, it ARRIVES at Mach 11, it is using the atmosphere to provide lift, not to increase its speed.
So where, exactly, does it slow down enough for either THAAD or SM-3 to engage it?
YR –
US Navy SM-3 missiles have taken down maneuverable Iranian ballistic or quasi-ballistic missiles that fly at speeds ranging up to Mach 13 – 15. That happened just recently in Iran’s October attack on Israel. Prior to that in April they took down some older Mach 8 versions.
But again, the problem is available numbers not capability.
PS, Putin says Oreshnik is Mach 10. But no sweat, what’s an additional 343 mps among friends.
leith: ” That happened just recently in Iran’s October attack on Israel.”
Here is the official statement from the Pentagon:
https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/3923249/pentagon-press-secretary-maj-gen-pat-ryder-holds-a-press-briefing/
Note this: “US Navy destroyers deployed to the Middle East region supported the defense of Israel by firing approximately a dozen interceptors against the incoming Iranian missiles.”
Hmmmmmmm. Suspiciously worded, that.
And then this: “I’m not going to get into the specific type of ordnance, Jennifer, other than to say, again, they fired a dozen interceptors.”
Hmmmmmm. Not exactly allaying my suspicions there.
And then this:
Reporter: “You said that the destroyer shot down Iranian missiles. ”
Spox: “And what I said was that they fired the interceptors towards those missiles.”
OK, that’s the money-shot in my book.
Leith, during that October missile barrage the US navy fired a dozen SM-3 at the Iranian missiles and didn’t manage to hit a single one.
Prove. Me. Wrong.
YR –
https://news.usni.org/2024/10/02/u-s-destroyers-successfully-down-iranian-missiles-with-sm-3s-carrier-uss-harry-s-truman-now-in-u-s-6th-fleet
Can I hire you to be my lawyer when the Trump-flag-flying cat lady next door sues me. You don’t quit, even when wrong you manage to wrangle and find a way to circumvent the facts.
leith, it was YOU who claimed that the US Navy SM-3 missiles took down Iranian ballistic missiles in October.
I’ve provided you with direct quotes from the damn Pentagon spokesman where he says – no less than three times – that the US Navy destroyers fired SM-3 at Iranian missiles.
And not once did he claim that they hit anything AND when a reporter paraphrased him to that effect he went out of his way to correct them.
Now, if you want – though it shouldn’t be necessary – I can also point you to the Pentagon presser for the August attack where the spox DID list the items that were intercepted and brought down by SM-3.
Compare and contrast, and if you think that the difference between the words chosen are inconsequential then you are being idiotic.
leith: “You don’t quit, even when wrong”
[Throwing my hands in the air]
That is just a bizarre statement, leith.
Because it was YOU who claimed that “US Navy SM-3 missiles have taken down maneuverable Iranian ballistic or quasi-ballistic missiles that fly at speeds ranging up to Mach 13 – 15. That happened just recently in Iran’s October attack on Israel”
I am absolutely, 100% right to point out that the Pentagon does not make that claim.
I have provided you with the link wherein the PENTAGON SPOKESMAN HIMSELF makes no claim that on that night US Navy SM-3 hit anything at all.
He refuses to say it THREE TIMES during that presser and, furthermore, when a reporter paraphrases him as making such a claim he immediately corrects her: he made no such claim.
Now, so very, very sorry leith, but when YOU make that same claim it is YOU who are wrong, because I am 100% correct to point out that the Pentagon makes no such claim and, when put to the test, emphatically denies that it is making any such case.
Honestly, the amount of dogma that is spewed on this site is astonishing. Claims are thrown about as self-evident truths, and as far as I can see I am the only person who goes out of their way to fact-check those “self-evident truths”
Leith, sunshine, you know because you know because you know that you know. And you know that even on matters that you don’t know anything about.
Use the source, Luke. Use the source.
YR-
Give it up.
From now, I’m calling you bulldog-who-never-lets-go. Please be my lawyer.
See Postol here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALCW3cDVXzQ
That was an eloquent talk from Professor Postol. He expresses so well how a man of science feels when confronted by the deceit and irresponsibility that now characterises much of public life in the West. Very glad you submitted a link to it else I would have missed it.
Also, just now, Professor Postol looking at “Hazel”. Examines what is so far known of its characteristics. With Daniel Davis:-.
“Russia’s New Missile: What it Means for Ukraine & the rest of the World.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkRdhgeBXAE&ab_channel=DanielDavis%2FDeepDive
I do not see that this new missile – I think Professor Postol categorises it as a radically new development – changes the underlying calculus with regard to the deployment of missiles in Europe. This was a concern expressed by the Russians in ’21/’22, for all I know before, and that concern was as valid then as now.
Missiles with short flight times that might or might not be nuclear are dangerous for both sides in Europe. They reduce the time available for deciding on a response. This increases the risk of accidental nuclear war.
That’s not only dangerous for the Europeans. It’s also dangerous for the US. An accidental launch, a misinterpreted launch, or even malfunctioning detection equipment, can trigger a response from the other side that could well kick off a chain of escalation reaching beyond Europe.
As for the recent Western attacks into “old” Russia, that’s just the sort of provocation that has backfired badly already as far as reactions in the world at large go. We, the Western countries, are now firing missiles into the territory of a nuclear power with no longer any pretence that our proxies are doing it independently. The Russians, and the world outside the West, look on horrified.
They are right to be horrified because not only are the Western politicians running wild. They are quite unaware, or seemingly so, of the risk they are taking. Our actions resemble nothing so much as a gang of jeering louts kicking a door in. Uncaring that the other side of the door sits a man with a shotgun, not wanting to use it but quite prepared to if he has to.
The Americans would do well to restrain the head of the gang, their President, from doing too much kicking. We’re fooling ourselves if we think the man with the shotgun will sit quiet for ever.
EO,
I’m sure this is a new missile, but it’s also developed from other missiles including the RS-26 which was classified as an ICBM to comply with a treaty. But just like the nuclear capable Kinzhal and the SS-20 long ago, this missile is meant to be a direct threat to Western Europe. So philosophically, it’s nothing new.
Do you not comprehend that Russia has been running wild since 22 February 2022? They invaded Ukraine, tortured and killed civilians, stolen Ukrainian children, devastated cities and villages and struck the entirety of Ukraine with missiles and drones. And now they are incensed that the Ukrainians fought back and are striking targets on Russian territory. And they are incensed that the West is providing Ukraine with the means to defend themselves and strike into Russia. Yet the Russians use Iranian and North korean weapons to strike into Ukraine and expect Ukraine and the West to expect this as justified.
“And they are incensed that the West is providing Ukraine with the means to defend themselves and strike into Russia.”
OK, TTG, you simply do not comprehend what the Russian objection is to the latest escalation from the old senile fool who pretends to be the President.
They draw a clear distinction between western weapons that are supplied BY the West but are operated BY the Ukrainians.
That don’t like that, but they accept that any retaliation they launch has a clear return address: Ukraine.
The Abrams tanks in the Kursk pocket? Sure, they are incensed, but their anger is directed at the Ukrainians.
HIMARS missiles? They don’t like ’em, but Putin specifically says that Ukrainians operate the HIMARS and so that’s who they retaliate against.
But ATACMS? Storm Shadows? That’s completely different, precisely because Ukraine can’t operate them on their own, so firing *those* into Russia involves both Ukrainian and American hands on the tiller.
That’s a fundamental difference, and IMHO the Russians are quite correct to point out that if the Ukrainians AND the Americans are directly involved in firing those missiles into Russia then the Russians reserve the right to shoot back at both.
Yeah, Right,
Americans are involved in building and supplying those ATACMS missiles to Ukraine, but that’s it. Only Putin insists that the Ukrainians cannot employ them on their own. He needs to frame this war as one between Russia and NATO. It’s embarrassing to admit that Ukraine is still resisting his desires. But he’s not totally wrong. NATO is not standing by and letting Putin have his way with Ukraine. NATO is assisting, even if only half-heartedly.
TTG: “Only Putin insists that the Ukrainians cannot employ them on their own.”
Indeed true. Nobody else – not in the Pentagon, not in the Whitehouse, nobody – is even willing to engage in any discussion on that claim.
Not one “Western” source is willing to stand up and say “No. No, that’s not true”.
Not. A. One.
Can’t imagine why……
Anyway, I’ve found this:
https://www.trngcmd.marines.mil/Portals/207/Docs/TBS/MCRP%203-16.1A%20TTPs%20for%20Field%20Artillery%20Target%20Acquisition.pdf?ver=2015-06-08-144125-603
“Tactics, Techniques, And Procedures for Field Artillery Target Acquisition”
Pages 215-216 describes Target Acquistion for ATACMS units.
Care to comment? Because it seems to me that those two pages explain a Target Acquisition process that involves the real-time involvement of intelligence sources that are absolutely, positively not within the capabilities of the Ukrainian Army.
For those who are interested in what that link has to say:
“The DOCC/FSE should process and conduct attack operations for heavy rockets. The corps has assets to immediately attack
these targets based on range and the TLE of acquisitions. The AAMDC should process missile acquisitions since the TLE of the acquisition is too large for ATACMS and the target dwell time is too short. The AAMDC can use the acquisitions in conjunction with other intelligence systems to develop a viable target for ATACMS or generate an air nomination. All target nominations and air requests are sent from the AAMDC to the DOCC for processing.”
AAMDC = Army and Air Defense Missile Command in Fort Bliss, Texas and New Mexico
DOCC = Deep Operations Coordination Cell
FSE = Fire Support Element
I am willing to accept that the FSE would be an all-Ukraine affair.
I would very much doubt that the DOCC is an all-Ukraine (or even predominantly-Ukrainian) affair.
I am quite convinced that there isn’t a single Ukrainian within a 1,000 miles of Fort Bliss.
Yet that document stresses that plans for ATACMS strikes should be processed at Fort Bliss, and not at the level of the DOCC/FSE, which is rather …. inconvenient to TTG’s argument.
Yeah, Right,
That whole section describes the preferred method for choosing the correct attack method for deep targets, those targets that the ATACMS could be used against. It’s how it’s done in the US Army or Marine Corps. Rather than automatically using ATACMS the DOCC or AAMDC (a theater level air and missile defense HQ, not Fort Bliss) should be consulted to determine if air assets would be more appropriate for a particular target. The DOCC normally controls the employment of both AH-64 and MLRS assets. The AAMDC deals with air missile defense at the theater level, but its air defense surveillance assets also provide a good view of deep targets. Both the DOCC and AAMDC would have a good view of deep targets and would be better able to determine the best asset to use against a deep target than a tactical level FSE. The AFATDS used at that tactical level is not really capable of processing and deconflicting those deep targets. That’s what’s meant by the TLE (target location error) of acquisition being too large for the ATACMS. Input and coordination from beyond the ATACMS battery FDC (fire direction center) or the tactical level FSE is needed to effectively use the ATACMS.
None of the dozen or so operators of the ATACMS have US DOCCs or AAMDCs to turn to for assistance in this deep targeting. And they certainly don’t consult Fort Bliss. They have their own equivalents as does Ukraine. Ukraine has been using GIS Arta and NATO satellite and surveillance aircraft supplied targeting data since early in the war to manage their deep targeting including drones, their own Neptune missiles and now ATACMS.
TTG: “Rather than automatically using ATACMS the DOCC or AAMDC (a theater level air and missile defense HQ, not Fort Bliss) should be consulted”
Pardon? How does one “automatically use ATACMS”?
Just point it ….. somewhere east and press the red button?
I don’t doubt that it will fly into the air, but how does it hit anything of value?
TTG: “None of the dozen or so operators of the ATACMS have US DOCCs or AAMDCs to turn to for assistance in this deep targeting. ”
That’s your ASSUMPTION. It is a claim that you make because it is the claim that you make.
Putin says the opposite. He says that those operators *do* have access to US DOCCS and AAMDC because if they didn’t then they’d have no way of knowing where to point the damn thing.
The difference between your claim and Putin’s claim is that he keeps double-dog-daring the Pentagon to say otherwise and…. they don’t.
TTG: “And they certainly don’t consult Fort Bliss. ”
Again, that’s your ASSUMPTION. You have zero evidence to back that up.
TTG: “Ukraine has been using GIS Arta and NATO satellite and surveillance aircraft supplied targeting data since early in the war to manage their deep targeting including drones, their own Neptune missiles and now ATACMS.”
OK, this is getting beyond tedious. I have already provided the quotes where Putin goes out of his way to point out that Ukraine can launch their own drones into Russia with their own resources. He even explicitly includes HIMARS in the list of equipment that Ukraine can operate on their own.
But he also says that ATACMS, and Storm Shadow, and Scalp are a different kettle of fish. They require direct input from American (and Brit, and French) servicemen to operate them.
Now, he’s said that multiple times at many venues and NOT ONCE has a Pentagon spokesman stood up and said “Actually, that’s not true”.
TTG: ” and now ATACMS.”
That’s your ASSUMPTION. And it is an assumption that you don’t put to the test.
You simply state it as a self-evident truth, when it is anything but that. It is a point of debate between Putin and the Pentagon.
And, once more, yet again, because this never gets old: Putin says it needs US servicemen to assist in its operation, and the Pentagon SAYS NOTHING.
Sheesh. This conversation is beyond bizarre.
Yeah, Right,
Your argument is that Putin says so. That’s pretty weak tea. He and his army don’t operate ATACMS. Maybe Russian weapons need high level input to operate and he’s extrapolating from Russian weaponry. Or he’s just making shit up. He admits Ukraine can manage their own deep strike drones, missiles and HIMARS, but somehow can’t do the same with ATACMS? Hell, ATACMS is fired from the HIMARS launcher. Only you and Putin are pushing the faery tale that ATACMS requires some distant magical American touch.
Well, the information I’ve seen doesn’t support all that, TTG. Quite the contrary. But this is where the foolishness of Western propaganda breaks down.
Let’s assume for the sake of argument that all this information war stuff is correct – that Putin is a mad and savage dictator bent on re-establishing old empire in Europe and we have at all costs to stop him. Then the resultant question pretty well asks itself:-
If we see Kiev as fighting to resist this dangerous dictator, as fighting for all our sakes for freedom and democracy against the forces of evil – and that’s the assumption I see in the UK press all the time – then why aren’t we fighting alongside?
Looks like sending a boy to do a man’s job and in this case the man – the Western powers – is standing well back because if we put boots on the ground ourselves we’d get hammered. That’s been abundantly clear since Yavoriv and was clear enough before.
So why do we push the Ukrainians into continuing a fight we daren’t fight ourselves? Sorry, but that makes us no better than posturing chickenhawks and the Ukrainians now know it. Our part in this war is dishonourable by any reckoning and no way round it.
The Western take our politicians and press feed us is internally inconsistent. A war for Freedom and Democracy, for the Rules Based International Order, they claim. But we’ll let the Ukrainians fight it for us alone.
Here’s Professor Postol, whom I find I respect more the more I hear of him, letting rip right at the end of that video at one corner of the heap of nonsense they’ve been feeding us. When this is over, TTG, and the truth starts to emerge, it’s going to be as after the Iraq war when we found out about the WMD fakery. We’ll all be wondering how we let these losers scam us yet again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkRdhgeBXAE&t=2215s
Razor, look at this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8LvIkGkfes
Go to the 29minute mark and look at the videos of this missile at launch and on its way toward Ukraine.
The trajectory is flat. It isn’t a ballistic missile at all, but a hypersonic glide missile that stay within the atmosphere.
Sobering stuff.
Well if it wasn’t Postol who said re the Patriot, then that’s a bit of a non sequitur, n’est pas? Postol said there was an infintesmal chance of even hitting one warhead, and this missile carries six sub munitions, each of which has another six. With respect to Postol’s credentials in such matters, I think I’ll defer to him. No offence.
Razor,
EO did find a video of Postol discussing the missile attack on Dnipro. It’s detailed and covers a lot no one else has covered. His reasoning about the THAAD’s supposedly inability to deal with this MIRV missile is the sheer number of MIRV submunitions involved. Most observers claim 6 MIRVs releasing 6 more submunitions each. That jives with a Dnipro residents report of the number of explosions heard, not Postol’s claim of many more submunitions based on the blurry images of the incoming projectiles. Postol is right about the number of THAAD interceptors needed to take out each warhead once the MIRVs into 6, then 36 warheads. Taking out one of these missiles would be a tall order for a THAAD battery unless it takes out some or all of them before they fully deploy. Being that THAAD has conducted successful interceptions against endo-atmospheric and exo-atmospheric targets, that’s very possible.
TTG: ” Taking out one of these missiles would be a tall order for a THAAD battery unless it takes out some or all of them before they fully deploy.”
Look at the other video link I supplied. Both Postol and Nima show videos from different angles of that missile streaking across the sky inside Russia.
The missile is clearly not describing a ballistic arc. There is no “endo-atmospheric and exo-atmoshperic targets” for THAAD, so your claim is not at all possible.
Yeah, Right,
If the missile doesn’t exist as endo-atmospheric or exo-atmoshperic, where does it exist? Some other dimension?
I have always taken “endo-atmospheric” to mean high in the atmosphere but not out into space.
Otherwise the term is a tautology, is it not?
Yeah, Right,
It’s either in the atmosphere or not in the atmosphere. That’s how the interceptor’s performance is described.
Then I learn something new every day.
TTG – Postol did say that his conclusions were preliminary. One video, apparently of the missile in flight, he hadn’t seen before Daniel Davis put it up. That was the video he wanted sent to him so he could examine it further.
Interesting stuff but not that important, with all respect to Professor Postol. The Russians already have missiles, with known capabilities, that suffice to give them missile superiority in this theatre. Only question is on the definition of “this theatre”. Used to be just Ukraine. Now we wait to see whether the Europeans will risk Europe itself becoming a theatre of war.
My guess is the Europeans will wimp out. A few PR attacks to save face, as we’ve seen all along. Nothing more serious. If Merz gets in and does deploy Taurus, or if Scholz stops dithering on the issue, then we might see some fireworks. Other than that, and given the Americans certainly aren’t going to come in heavy, it’ll be pinprick attacks so the Euros can strut their stuff.
That leaves aside the question of whether the Americans have anything to come in heavy with. Little evidence of it. They’re outmatched in missiles and seriously outmatched in kit of all sorts, both in quantity and quality. Never mind Wunderwaffen, they’re short on bread and butter Waffen and have shown little inclination over the past three years to remedy the deficiency. No Willow Run and suchlike for this enterprise and none attempted, seems. So they’re missing some rungs on the escalation ladder.
And not even the Biden team, psycho though the performance they’re putting on at the moment is both here and in the ME, are prepared to risk the top of the ladder – nuclear. Biden will not go nuclear if the Russians send missiles into Europe. We all know that so all the talk we’re hearing at the moment from the Euros is empty posturing. This time round Uncle Sam is not going to be riding in to the rescue.
That leaves the Ukrainians high and dry – that betrayal of the Ukrainians by the Western powers is perhaps the most sickening aspect of this unnecessary war. But it also leaves the Europeans high and dry.
Good. Berlin/Brussels, HMG trailing behind looking for pickings, hoped to become one of the superpowers. They wanted to “project the power of a continent”, as I’ve seen it put so grandiosely by the Euros, on Uncle Sam’s dime. I think we can rely on your President Trump to introduce them to reality.
EO,
“Biden will not go nuclear if the Russians send missiles into Europe.”
I believe that also. NATO will respond conventionally. The bulk of NATO offensive capability lies in its air assets. That’s what will respond to a Russian attack on Europe. The much vaunted Russian A2/AD capability has already proven not up to the task of stopping Ukrainian drone strikes deep into the Russian homeland.
TTG – a mistake and I hope you’ll allow me to correct it. Should have written, the Americans have nothing much useful for this theatre.
You do of course have a vast amount of useful kit and best in class logistics for expeditionary forces – but as we’ve seen, nothing much designed for an old-fashioned European land war. Yours are probably the best trained troops going and lots of them, but I don’t believe you could put them in in the quantities needed. It’s not an existential war for you so the American electorate wouldn’t wear it.
You’re not allowed to fight the Russians anyway. Whichever side lost would go nuclear so you can’t. Wasn’t that one of the Colonel’s dictums?
This was by definition an unwinnable war for us. What Trukhan said underlined that.
He was referring to the “Summer Offensive”. He spoke of the type and number of forces that would have been needed to breach the Surovikin line, as that line was termed by us. Then he remarked that even had there been sufficient to breach that line, the Russians would as a matter of course have used tactical nuclear to break the offensive up.
So the Milley/Cavoli/Radakin trio were on a loser anyway when they cooked that “Summer Offensive” up. It was never going to work even if it had worked, one might say. Not when nuclear would always have had the last word.
Similarly, were the Russians to take it into their heads to visit Berlin again, and were your forces unable to stop them, you’d go tactical nuclear. That’s what you’ve got tactical nuclear for. Provided President Trump allows the Euros to keep sheltering under the US nuclear umbrella.
Though I can’t for the life of me imagine why the Russians would want to visit Berlin again. The food there’s nothing like as good as in Munich and their trains no longer run on time.
You’ll also, I hope, allow me to withdraw “Chickenhawk”, at least in the US context. There’s a great difference between a military power that finds it can’t use its power in a particular theatre, which is the American case, and a power that pretends it’s a military power but isn’t. Like the Europoodles.
That’s what gets me grinding my teeth. I watch the Euros – and HMG’s the worst of them dammit – throwing their weight around as if they had some. Bellowing like rutting stags with their proxy war fever – that was rampant to an extent you wouldn’t believe in Europe in ’22 – knowing they were never going to be in the firing line and, as Kujat explained several times, they had nothing much to fire with anyway.
Scholz. Macron. Johnson, and now that man who talks like a warmed up cadaver. Chickenhawks the lot of them and that’s all they’re good for. Though I expect we’ll get shot of them some time, if they don’t collapse through sheer inanity first, and get back to realistic politics in Europe again.
The issue with this missile is many-fold.
1) It stays within the atmosphere, which means that it is going to be wrapped in a plasma cloud. Which means that it will be invisible to radar.
2) Even discounting (1) by staying within the atmosphere any radar horizon is drastically reduced, as is reaction time.
3) By staying within the atmosphere the missile is able to maneuver far more radically than a ballistic missile that exits the atmosphere.
4) By staying at Mach 10+ all the way to the target a single missile is able to take out targets that would otherwise require a nuclear warhead.
Or, put another way: even if the Russians have other means of destroying any target in Europe the importance of this missile is to drive home the futility of thinking that you can intercept what the Russians are throwing at you.
Exhibit A: leith, who had convinced himself that THAAD and SM-3 has made NATO invulnerable.
YR –
I’ve never used the term invulnerable. Need many more SM-3’s and THAAD’s or Europe’s Sky Shield to get anywhere close. But some could still get through.
Exhibit B: YR, who had convinced himself that Putin’s Wunderwaffen are invulnerable.
leith (now): “I’ve never used the term invulnerable”
leith (then): “If they attempt to use it on the West, then THAADs or SM-3s will take it out.”
Hmmmm. A rose by any other name…..
YR –
“take it out”
not ‘take them out’
There are not enough SM-3s in Europe to stop an attack of multiple missiles, as I’ve explained to you many times, but you seem not able to comprehend.
Perhaps I won’t hire you as my lawyer after all. You’d just irritate the judge with your misperceptions.
So I take your reply to suggest that you were – and still are? – claiming that “it” was used in the singular?
That, apparently, you were claiming that the Russians had only one single, solitary Oreshnikn to use against the west?
How bizarre, since if that were the claim (and, again, that seems a bizarrely omniscient claim) then we can all rest easy because Putin has already shot his wad.
Yours appears to be a claim of quantity swamping quality.
If that is so (and, again, your writing is hopelessly opaque) then you are wrong: Oreshnik accelerates out of the blocks at Mach 11, it skips its way through the atmosphere at Mach 11, and it goes Boom-Titty-Boom into the target at Mach 11.
And neither THAAD nor SM-3 can shoot down something going at Mach 11 inside the atmosphere.
If you want to dispute that then I have an email address for you: postol@mit.edu
He seems a nice chap, so I’m sure he will be more than happy to correct your misconceptions.
Hallo, I am a reader for many years. Chemist, studies in history, economy, finance.
„a MIRVed ballistic missile with no warheads, just weight simulators, had no real military effect.”
That opinion is debatable, given that hypersonic impact speed of reported Mach 10 makes a weight simulator (weight of a heavy nuclear warhead) more energetic than a chemical explosive warhead of the same volume size. The concept of “Kinetic bombardment“.
I used ChatGPT as calculator (a great tool), and have the details for a simplified setting.
The total energy of a warhead made entirely of metal at Mach 10, exceeds the total energy (kinetic plus chemical) of a warhead of the same size, entirely made of conventional explosive at Mach 10 by a factor of approximately 3.65.
In addition, even assuming equal total energy, a warhead rich in metal is likely to penetrate much deeper into concrete than a warhead with less metal. We can also speculate on the lethal use of pyrophoric behavior of hot tungsten metal aerosol (not to say DU) after impact in underground facilities.
Hermann,
Great explanation. I agree. An inert weight simulator, even a 60 lbs simulator, striking at mach 11 can do a hell of a lot of damage.
Former DIA analyst Rebekah Koffler
https://g.co/kgs/26biXKF ,
in an interview dated 2024-11-24,
says what is happening now tracks DIA wargaming that led straight to nuclear war:
https://youtu.be/FFOodusuoP4
“We are, right now,
on the escalation ladder,
inching towards nuclear war
…
Every wargame … ended up in nuclear war.”
For another Rebekah Koffler piece, see
https://www.newsweek.com/bidens-recklessness-turning-ukraine-another-afghanistan-opinion-1726140
“As Putin’s war on Ukraine rages on and Washington continues to pledge more aid and weapons to the besieged nation,
the entire situation is starting to look ever more like another Afghanistan.
…
Despite the rosy image of Ukraine painted by Washington politicians and the mainstream media,
the country remains one of the most corrupt places in the world, ranking 123rd out of the 180 countries on the corruption scale,
only slightly worse than the legendarily corrupt Russia, which is 139th.”
.
Keith Harbaugh,
Ukraine ranks 104 on the 2023 corruption perception index with a score of 36. Same score as Brazil, Serbia and Algeria. She rose 18 in the rankings since 2021. Russia ranks 141 with a score of 26. She dropped 5 rankings since 2021 Same as Kyrgyzstan and Uganda. For comparison, the US ranks 25 with a score of 69. Denmark remains number 1 with a score of 90.
Ranked by whom, when? Why should we care about Russia’s rank by whomever, we aren’t giving them our money?
Fred,
Transparency International. They’ve been doing this annually since 1995.
TTG,
“Transparency International e.V. is a German registered association founded in 1993 by former employees of the World Bank.”
The World Bank. LOL the home of impartiality.
“Transparency International”
LOL. That’s a really great 1984ish name.
“They’ve been doing this annually since 1995.”
Well there you go. That’s a really long time. I’m extra-convinced now.
I think Stalin was in power that long too. He must have been right too.
All these rankings – health, social justice, equity, truthiness, etc., etc., etc.
Sheesh. What is the ranking methodology? Where’s the raw data?
Who even cares?
THEY say so. THEY must be believed.
No, not “them”. They’re the wrong “they”. There’s a lot of disinfo out there, you know. Got to get your THEYs correct.
What’s fun – perhaps near orgasmic if you’re one of those superiority complex control freak kind of people – is that if you work for a big org/govt ……= lots of guns, kangaroo courts and gulags supporting you – or are you supporting them? A veritable Charlie Foxtrot of a back scratching frenzy…. is you get to create your own reality by naming and defining things, and then impose the whole artifice on others – and no one can question you because that makes them “deniers”, by yet another definition you set. And no one wants to be a “denier” (did I mention guns, kangaroo courts and gulags?).
Like Fauci and crew becoming “science” itself. You can’t question SCIENCE! YOU IGNORANT DEPLORABLE GARBAGE PEON DENIER!
Eric Newhill,
I knew some would be upset that Ukraine is far from the most corrupt country on Earth and that Russia is more corrupt than Ukraine, but I didn’t think you’d care one way or the other. The methodology and data used by Transparency International is freely available and is covered by a Creative Commons license
https://www.transparency.org/en/news/how-cpi-scores-are-calculated
TTG,
Has the old advice of evaluating the information, and the source of the information, separately, been proven false somewhere?
TTG,
Perception not = actual.
If you passed a survey like that around Germany circa 1938, you’d have to conclude that Jews are subversive rats.
I couldn’t give a damn about Russia or Ukraine other than an intra-slav conflict is a) costing me more as a US tax payer and b) there is a remote possibility that the slav conflict widens to include the equally stupid Western Europeans and then, eventually the US. c) There is a lot to be learned from this new generation of warfare (one of those things being, perhaps, that modern peer to peer warfare is not easily “won” because the traditional game changer weapons are subservient to cheap new ones, like drones and cyber)
I do care about the scientific methodology being applied correctly and the results being discussed and interpreted appropriately, with all caveats transparently applied. Propaganda does not.
Eric, this is another of those titillating moments when I agree with you.
CPI = Corruption PERCEPTION Index
That’s not exactly an objective measure of “corruption”, more a measure of the “vibe, man, the vibe”.
The sources of information that is used to “statistically” measure corruption are very predominantly western sources, and so no matter how scrupulously and scientifically-soundly Transparency International collate that information and distill it into a single measure (the “index”) there is an inbuilt western bias to the raw data.
TTG thinks that this is “impartial”.
I suspect it is about as “impartial” in the same way that the Eurovision Song Contest is “impartial” in the way in which it collates the score of each contestant.
But the Eurovision Song Contest is a rigged game, even though I don’t doubt that their “methodology” is statistically-sound.
Rubbish In = Rubbish Out.
That was an regrettably unpleasant thing to say about Starmer, TTG, and I wish I hadn’t said it. But Starmer was Trilateral Commission, never a good sign, and on top of that he got up to legal trickery you wouldn’t credit trying to stop Brexit. Even so, no one has anything worse to say about him other than that he’s a personality free zone and I went far too far suggesting he might be a zombie.
Too late now! What’s said’s said. Please put it down to momentary irritation at seeing a British Prime Minister seemingly considering sending British troops in to beat up on the Russians. Alongside French troops bent on the same mission. Starmer and Macron, in their access of martial ardour, have forgotten that it’s Ukrainian troops we use for that enterprise, not ours. I expect Biden or Trump or somebody will put them right.
On more serious matters, I came down to breakfast this morning and saw Ritter pointing out much the same as Professor Postol. We in the general public might still be waiting for further information, but American Intel will know all about Hazel. They will have been watching the launch preparations and following the missile’s subsequent course with interest.
But I still can’t see what all the fuss is about. If the Russians wanted to take out Brize Norton or some Rheinmetall plant they could have done so any time in the last two or three years. European AD is not so brilliant that it’d take this new missile to get past it. So what’s changed?
Nothing. The Russians will neutralise remnant Ukraine, or “rump Ukraine” as some call it, right up to the Polish border and that’s been obvious since February 2022. As said so often, the Russians cannot tolerate NATO using a country on their borders to mount “look no hands” missions against Russia, any more than the US could tolerate the Russians using Mexico for the same purpose.
Barring nuclear there’s nothing NATO can do about that and the various suggestions that there is, given our equipment and manpower inferiority in this theatre, are just so much hot air.
The Western analysts and journalists are also fussing too much about what President Trump might or might not do in the war after he’s inaugurated. Some say Biden’s team is attempting to “Trump proof” policy on Ukraine. Others, that Trump has sold his voters a pup and is himself intent on continuing the war. Others, that he’s doing what he did with North Korea at the start of his previous presidency. That is, making various threats to start his negotiations with Putin off with and then slipping in some sensible compromise. The bad cop good cop routine.
But none recognise that whatever he does, President Trump will be as powerless as President Biden when it comes to influencing the outcome in Ukraine.
More sanctions won’t work any better than the old ones did. And though there’s talk of sending in far more equipment, that talk ignores the plain fact that in the matter of equipment the NATO cupboard is bare. Certainly if the Americans want to keep some for the Pacific.
I don’t believe Trump would go nuclear any more than Biden would so no matter the excited talk, the Ukrainian enterprise we’ve been hoping so much from is a dead duck.
As, in reality, the Americans recognised two years ago. Pity the Europeans didn’t have the same sense. RIP Lady Ashton and Victoria Nuland and please don’t dance on their graves. It’s disrespectful.
…………………………
So we are now spectators only in this war, then, watching to see how the Russians decide to go about neutralising remnant Ukraine.
I suppose the main point of interest there for most is Odessa. It still has a majority Russian population so it’d be logical for the Russians to incorporate it. Maybe other parts of the old Party of Regions area where there’s a pro-Russian majority. Maybe more. That’s up to the Russians.
But it’s how it will go in the western part of the remnant that’ll be critical. The Russians don’t want to have to occupy and police that part.
They may not have to. The sense of betrayal coming out of Ukraine now, from Zelensky down, is palpable.
We kept the Ukrainians fighting by promising we’d be with them as long as it takes. Who can forget Zelensky’s triumphal progress through the Western capitals, the standing ovations, as we hailed him as the new Churchill?
The Ukrainians believed all that. Took a million casualties holding to that belief. And then we ditched them at Vilnius. The dismissive “We are not Amazon” must have hit them like a bucket of cold water. It may be that after such betrayal the western Ukrainians are no longer so intent on belonging to the West. As with Odessa, we’ll just have to wait and see.
EO,
It remains befuddling to me that you just can’t comprehend that Ukrainians should want to defend themselves against an invasion. Would you have recommended that the Brits surrendered to the Nazis after Dunkirk and when the Battle of Britain began? TTG has expressed also being astounded by your inability to consider that Ukrainians might want to be independent and free of Russia. I am beginning to think that the only reason you cannot grasp the notion of sovereignty is because you really are a Russian agent. Lord knows enough for sure Russian and Chinese agents stop by here, along with proponents of global communism, the caliphate and anarchism.
That said, I have said since day 1 that NATO will not permit Russia to prevail, even if that means committing ground NATO troops.
Eric – The “enemy agent” accusation was used against Trump to great effect with Steelegate – the Americans called that Russiagate – and I’m seeing it used or proposed to be used against Tulsi Gabbard right now. It doesn’t work at their level, or only for the credulous. Even less so down at our level.
To know how information warfare is conducted in real life, spend a few minutes with this gentleman:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtX_p-bDyxw&t=28s
I submitted that link to a Canadian magazine where the problem of censorship was being discussed.
https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/canadas-new-red-scare-is-profoundly-undemocratic#comment-6582682633
The article there was on just this theme – “Accusations abound against “Russian agents,” “Kremlin influencers,” “Moscow proxies,” and the like. Don’t like someone, call them “pro-Russian;” dislike what they say, call it “Russian disinformation;” want to silence them, call them a “Russian agent.” And so on. Increasingly, reasoned debate is being replaced by silencing and name-calling.”
Sadly, Udo Ulfkotte is dead now. I think he had a weak heart and he lived under a lot of stress. That’s visible in the clip but his testimony is I believe genuine. We’re victims of the information war sure enough, Eric. But it’s being conducted against us by our own governments.
……………………………..
You and I have a serious disagreement on the war in the ME but also, though less so, on the facts of the Ukrainian war. That boils down to a single question. Was the SMO an “unprovoked” attack? Or was it a pre-emptive strike intended to ward off harm to the people of the Donbass? I’m sorry we disagree on that matter.
EO,
You’re a slippery alleged limey, aren’t you? Bobbing, weaving and throwing up all kinds of chaff. What does a Canuck magazine article have to do with *you* being a Russian agent?
“That boils down to a single question. Was the SMO an “unprovoked” attack?”
No it doesn’t. In fact, what you say is silly. Are you seriously suggesting that Ukraine was going to invade Russia or pose some other existential threat? How do you define “provoked”? Looked at you funny? Stepped on your toe?
Joining NATO isn’t a provocation. If it were, Russia has a lot more countries to try to invade.
Yes, we disagree on the MENA situation. You are in favor of terrorists who provoke Isreal to attack them by gleefully killing women and children in cold blood.
Fascinating that somehow, in your mind, Ukraine provoked Russia to violate its sovereignty and invade it, whereas Israel is simply showing naked aggression toward fanatical Jew hating and murdering Muslims.
Your understanding of “provoked” is biased – perhaps by who is paying you – to say the least. I sometimes wonder what color the sky is in your world.
Or FAFO. I believe I’m correct in believing the US marines put it that way round.
EO,
NATO was searching for a mission in the far east long ago when a defensive alliance against Russia was looking rather redundant. Now looking for additional allies, especially the South Korean defense industry, seems a reasonable course of action.
Eric – check out how it all looks from the other side of the fence:-
26 November 2024 21:57
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks at a meeting of Heads of Security Agencies and Intelligence Services of CIS Member States, Moscow, November 26, 2024
https://mid.ru/en/press_service/minister_speeches/1983956/
“NATO, however, approaches these matters differently. Their previously bashful rhetoric about NATO being a “defensive alliance” has already been refuted by previous Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg. He said they defend the territories of their member countries, but the threat to these territories now comes from the South China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and the Asia-Pacific region. That makes the North Atlantic Alliance responsible for security in the Asia-Pacific as well, meaning that Euro-Atlantic security and security in Asia and the Pacific are indivisible. This is a direct quote which later made it into a resolution of one of the Alliance’s summits.
More recently, Chair of NATO’s Military Committee Rob Bauer announced that this was no longer enough, and in order to meet the goals of NATO member states’ protection and defence, it is necessary to preemptively hit targets in the Russian Federation that NATO believes could pose a threat to NATO member states. I believe this does not need my comment. Such statements discard diplomatic decorum and expose NATO’s true intentions.”
I don’t know how much you follow Lavrov. I keep a bit of an eye on him. The professional’s professional when it comes to diplomacy so not given to the hysterical utterances of a Scholz or a Blinken.
But behind the carefully phrased dip speak in this and other recent statements I fancy one can now detect a certain tetchiness. Which I don’t think is entirely due to the fact that Putin made him give up smoking.
This was the ultimate FAFO war, Eric. We fooled around on the borders of a major nuclear power and we’re now finding out the consequences. Let Lavrov get back to playing with his Brics friends, which he’s much happier doing, and let Trump get on with rebuilding his country. No mileage in the Ukraine scam any more.
TTG – these new missiles.
As Professor Postol is saying they do provide another and formidable addition to the Russian missile arsenal. But as Leith says above, the Russians already have the capability to strike the EU/UK with missiles. So if the Russians were to decide to strike military installations in Europe in retaliation for our recent attacks on them, they don’t need this new missile to do so. Nothing changed there.
The fact that the new missile cannot be defended against also doesn’t change things that much. European AD is inadequate in any case. We can’t guarantee to shoot down the missiles the Russians already had. The fact that we can’t shoot down this new one leaves us much where we were before.
What alarms Professor Postol is the prospect of missiles with short flight times, missiles that might or might not be nuclear, stationed in Europe. That increases the danger of nuclear war since one side or the other will see incoming, won’t know whether that incoming is nuclear or not, and will have very little time to decide how to respond.
But there again that’s already the position, more or less. The Russians were pointing out the dangers of these short flight times in 21/22 when the flight time they gave as an example was ten minutes from our side. The fact that that’ll be down to five minutes when we get faster missiles doesn’t alter things much. They took it for granted in 21/22 that we would eventually get these faster missiles ourselves and Putin took that for granted as well in his recent announcement.
Andrei Martyanov points out that the increased destructiveness of this new missile would be a factor should the war expand. For instance, the ability to comprehensively destroy port facilities from afar with non-nuclear missiles (Martyanov gives Bremerhaven as an example) would render more difficult the disembarkation of American troops and equipment should the Americans send reinforcements to Europe. But the Americans have demonstrated no intention of taking the war to that level – if they did it would probably go nuclear anyway – and therefore that scenario is not applicable in this case. One hopes!
So what’s changed with “Hazel”? Nothing much, though Paveway IV on MOA does point out that underground storage of Western missiles in Ukraine will now become more difficult, as will the ability of the Ukrainians themselves to site weapons R&D facilities and weapons manufacturing facilities underground. Also HQ’s, though it’s surely doubtful that NATO needs to or does station HQ’s in Ukraine.
And I recollect that not long back the Ukrainians put out a photo of their AD and Communications HQ in the Donbass that had been destroyed by missile attack in the first few seconds of the SMO – so there again, the deployment of “Hazel” doesn’t change things much in that respect.
I therefore go with Leith, if I’m reading him right, in believing that the deployment of this new weapon will make little difference to the current situation.
That current situation being that Kiev is on its last legs and NATO is mounting pinprick attacks into Russia proper for reasons that are uncertain. PR, to show that “We tried”? A last chance to degrade, if minimally, Russian military strength? Most likely, Biden and his team making decisions that are mostly to do with internal American politics and that are nothing much to do with military realities on the ground.
For the Russians, this use of “Hazel” suits their PR requirements too. Putin does not wish to escalate. He wants to neutralise Ukraine to prevent it being used by NATO against Russia, but he does not want to see overt war with the West outside the boundaries of Ukraine. That is also the position of his sometime friends and allies, the Brics countries, who also want to see the war kept limited and wrapped up as soon as possible.
Against that, Putin is vulnerable to Russian public opinion. The average Russian sees Russia being attacked in all manner of ways – the Kursk offensive, our SS/Scalp/ATACMS strikes, deployment of Western mercs and advisors and technicians. The Russian public also hears the wilder anti-Russian statements put out by our press and politicians – and I’ve noticed that if anything those have become wilder recently. We may insist that this is a Ukraine/Russia war but the average Russian sees through that and regards it as a war of the West on Russia. They want a more dramatic and forceful response to that than Putin is prepared to give them.
We’re lucky, in fact, that Putin’s at the helm in Russia. Were the Russian hawks to take over we’d soon see this war spiralling out of control. Now Putin can give his electorate, and his hawks, a seemingly dramatic and forceful response with this new missile that will satisfy Russian national pride. But that won’t risk the escalation of the war that Putin is seeking to avoid.
………………………………..
Tell you what, though, TTG. There’s going to be hell to pay in Europe when this war’s over. The Euros are really going in for the Cold War II talk and might even, though it’s maybe unlikely, put their money where their mouths are when it comes to building up a useful European military. If the Russians find that too inconvenient – having a rancidly Russophobic Europe on their borders might be inconvenient – they can scotch that easily enough by imposing counter-sanctions. Been saying for years now that Berlin/Brussels/Westminster never seem to worry about counter-sanctions. Time they did.
EO,
“We’re lucky, in fact, that Putin’s at the helm in Russia. Were the Russian hawks to take over we’d soon see this war spiralling out of control.”
I actually agree with you on that point. NATO is really doing all it can to push the limits and kick off WW3. The Biden admin seems to be on the verge of implementing a mass Kool-Aid drinking event – if they can’t have power and have to give it up to MAGA, then they’ll burn it all down and commit suicide in the process. I think Putin is wise enough to ignore the globalist dick choppers and wait for the more mature and reasonable leadership of the Trump admin.
“The Euros are really going in for the Cold War II talk and might even, though it’s maybe unlikely, put their money where their mouths are when it comes to building up a useful European military.”
Disagree. They are not seeking a cold war. Rather, they are going for hot war. Once again, as I have said here and at LJ’s garbage dump, since day 1, NATO is not going to back down – even if that means NATO troops on the ground fighting Russians, nuclear exchange, whatever it takes. Russia isn’t going to lose face, but isn’t nearly as suicidal as Europeans/America – at least, as you note, with Putin at the helm.
The new missile is small potatoes in the grand scheme of things. However, NATO will use it as yet one more excuse to go nuts and escalate to WW3. I really don’t like the bellicose talk out Europe in the past 72 hours. What is it with Europeans that they must slaughter themselves minimally a couple of times each century?
Still, I think Trump will put a stop to the march to destruction. I think Putin will welcome the opportunity to take it down several notches. The MIC, lying state controlled US media and kooky Euros will gripe about Trump being in cahoots with Putin and all that nonsense, but Trump doesn’t care this time around and the state controlled MSM has lost its mojo.
TTG,
“NATO was searching for a mission in the far east long ago when a defensive alliance against Russia was looking rather redundant.”
The bureaucracy was looking for a continuation of the pay and benefits so went far, far afield. The organization should be scrapped and all those individual nations decide on their own national interests – and pay for it themselves.
Could not agree more.
Trump..D,J. Knows ll The Real Numbers..NSC,,,Status…Repeat..Repeat..WW3.
He knew Putins Position…and Why NATO Agitated.for War…, But..Reality for the USA
is,,,,,No Strength…No Peace…All Joint Forces Undermined ..Deliberate,,6 Year Plan.
Forty Six US Navy Ships..Taken offline..Not enough to Man what is Left..Not Enough
Weapons…Ammunition..Missles…All Replays of the NEW China attacking Taiwan..
They WIN..We Lose..Wheres the Strength Now…?? Europe..Asia..The Americas..Middle East..? Multi Multi…Multi Fronts…Our Joint ignored the
Hypersonic..Launches from a Mother Ship..in Orbit..?? Hide and Glide..NOPE..
Anticipate the Worst…Build more and Better…R&D…But Ignore it..If they Tell you Too..because…Arrogance…is a George Custer Mind Set..It Gets You Killed…
Whats Brewing Now for the USA..Homeland War…?….9/11 with Three Million
Armed…Sleeper Cells..? I Appreciate the Satire…;;Cryptic..Thoughts here..
Jim
Jim,
Fundamentally transformed. Just like the light bringer promised.
TTG – Did you in the past ever work with General Kellog, who I believe spent some time in Special Forces? Reportedly Trump appointed him as Special Envoy to Russia & Ukraine.
leith,
No, he was in SF in Viet Nam. Before my time. Plenty of Infantry assignments, so that’s good. The comments out of Ukraine are positive so far.
Another Viet era Green Beret I wondered if you or Col Lang had known, Henry Hooper. Boxed with Cassius Clay once in a Golden Gloves match.
https://www.vfw.org/media-and-events/latest-releases/archives/2024/2/a-vfw-members-brush-with-the-greatest
leith,
Never knew him. The Viet era Green Berets I knew/worked with were Albert H. Rivers (my ROTC mentor), Chuck Clayton, Doug Miller (25th Division Recondo School), Jon Caviani and Paris Davis in 10th SFG(A). Paris Davis finally got his MOH last year.
My two ops officers as a case officer were also SF from Viet Nam. One was also a major in Delta at Desert One.
TTG – I think this is the original report, co-authored by General Kellog, April 2024.
https://americafirstpolicy.com/issues/america-first-russia-ukraine
Written during the election campaign it constitutes in the main an examination of the handling of the Ukrainian war by the Biden administration. It goes through the various mistakes the administration made and is severely critical of the resultant damage done to both Ukraine and to American interests.
Most of it, as one would expect of a report written during a bitterly contested election, more or less nonsense. The writers don’t seem to have had access to information about the situation on the LoC in February 2022. Also, my view, a most unfair attack on the Biden administration for the withdrawal from Afghanistan, given that that withdrawal was very much a Trump policy! But election campaigns mostly consist of unjustified attacks so as the Americans say, it is what it is.
This, though, justified:-
“In short, the Biden Administration began in late 2022 to use the Ukrainian military to fight a proxy war to promote U.S. policy goals of weakening the Putin regime at home and destroying its military. It was not a strategy, but a hope based on emotion. It was not a plan for success.
“Biden’s repeated statements that he was prepared to send arms to Ukraine “for as long as it takes” without providing a strategy for Ukraine to win the war or a plan to end the conflict epitomized the real intention of his policy to use the conflict as a U.S. proxy war against Russia. Biden, throughout his tenure, attempted to define the “as long as it takes” approach by claiming the war was about standing up to a tyrant and defending and promoting global democracy.[i] But Biden never explained how U.S. military support of Ukraine would accomplish his goals.”
But it did not take a General Kellog to point out that if the cause of the war is disputed, that manner in which it was fought by the West, which really means by the Americans, betrayed incompetence throughout.
Might remark here that not only have Western General Staffs for the last few decades been tasked with planning for and fighting wars of quite a different nature from the war they were faced with in Ukraine, it is my belief that Western military establishments, in the US, Germany, and the UK, were working to orders from the politicians they knew to be impracticable but could do nothing other than obey.
I recollect a very senior British military figure, General Lord Richards, stating at the outset that this war was uncertain of success in that we were not able to support our proxies adequately – General Lord Richards drew a direct comparison with the Syrian war, in which case also he stated that we had not ensured our proxies were adequately supported.
So too several Generals in Germany. Generals Kujat and Zorn spoke out, as did some French Generals, and there were at least some indications that even General Milley, and other officers in the States, knew that the war was being fought wrongly and had little chance of success.
In parenthesis, it’s notable that most of the Generals who spoke out were retired officers. Serving officers have to perform the task they are set. And both the Russian and American armies had their share of what the Russians called “parquet Generals” and what we call Political Generals, that is officers whose promotion was due more to their skills in pleasing the politicians rather than to their professional ability.
The Russians weeded a few of those out – you have to if you want to win a war – but there was no such cleaning house in the Western armies. We do have some competent professionals in place, or had, but maybe not enough. Perhaps after this war the Western military establishments will return to the practice of promoting to the higher ranks exclusively by merit.
That parenthesis aside, General Kellog’s report is mainly of interest, not because it identifies past mistakes, but because it might have served to indicate the advice President Trump will be receiving as he seeks to extricate his country from the Ukrainian morass.
Is that advice practicable? Not really. It assumes the Western powers have the military and economic clout to influence the course of events. It fails to recognise that the neutralization of Ukraine in order to prevent it being used by NATO as a means of attack is, and has been from the start, the Russian war aim. And that there is little the West can do, now that the war has gone this far, to dissuade the Russians from achieving that aim in full.
So General Kellog is unrealistic in that respect. The most he can hope for is that the Russians allow a face saving formula. But it may be that the Russians are no longer much interested in saving face for the Western politicians.
Nor can a paper published in April of this year have much relevance to the position now. Since that time the Europeans have gone out on a limb by continuing to insist on a hard line approach. Unless there’s an unlikely transformation of the European political scene, and that fast, Europe is heading resolutely towards Cold War II. “We have always been at war with Eastasia” will I suspect be our cry and the Europeans will stick to it.
But that, in this context, is irrelevant. The reason that the report is now a dead letter is that the actions of the Biden administration since that April, and particularly the recent direct and overt Western attacks on Russia, have so changed the political situation that these Kellog suggestions are out of date. In that respect we might say that Biden has done Trump a favour.
So this Kellog report. It is a report riddled with errors and misconceptions and in any case offering no realistic way out of the impasse for the West other than effective surrender. But it is first and foremost, after all, material composed for the purposes of an election. We should not expect more from it.
I do though. There’s a recognition in that Kellog report that it’s diplomatically unprofessional to block normal diplomatic contact. That it might be sensible to talk to the Russians rather than demonise them. Trump’s capable of that. And one would like to see these two superpowers settling down to some sort of peaceful coexistence. Safer.
And none but the hard-liners in Washington and Berlin/Brussels would argue with this:-
“But as Donald Trump said at the CNN town hall in 2023, “I want everyone to stop dying.” That’s our view, too. It is a good first step.”
EO,
Kellogg argues that the Biden administration’s policy of escalation management is a failed policy that only succeeded in prolonging the conflict. I agree with this. Kellogg seems to agree with the old Powell doctrine that if you’re going to start a war, you best be prepared to finish it or don’t start it in the first place. His “America First” calls for confronting/dealing with Russia from a position of strength. So far, he has been received quite well in Ukraine.
TTG – I also submitted that look at Kellog’s report to Andrei Martyanov’s site and got a feisty response from one of his commenters. To the effect that the Russians are no longer much interested in helping the US/EU save face.
The recent Putin press conference might also be taken to exhibit the same attitude. But there are indications there to the contrary. (“Nevertheless, the country remains great, unquestionably. We are open to dialogue with the United States, including with the future administration.”)
So Putin is genuinely interested in establishing good relations with Trump, whom he conceives to have been treated worse by Washington than he would have been by Russian gangsters!
And Russian gangsters are something else. A year or so back there was gossip that they had taken over the drugs trade in parts of London from the West Indians, using methods that were brutal in the extreme. Presumably they’re as ruthless in Russia itself so that is no very flattering comparison for Washington.
That interesting sidelight on gang warfare in Russia and Washington apart, Putin’s remarks at the end of that press conference indicate no readiness on the part of the Russians to walk back their goals in Ukraine:-
(Vladimir Putin answered media questions following his state visit to Kazakhstan and the CSTO summit.)
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/by-date/28.11.2024
But I fail to understand why either side is talking of negotiations. Putin’s remarks to his Foreign Office officials in June and Lavrov’s repetition of those remarks in the Newsweek article state explicitly that a “pre-requisite” to negotiations is the lifting of all sanctions.
https://mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/1957107/
Whatever Trump thinks of that, would the Europeans accept such a condition? I don’t think so. As said before, they’re stuck with Russia delenda est and there’s no shifting them.
In fact the Europeans seem rather to be talking of putting troops in. For “peacekeeping” purposes. Not mercs or instructors but boots on the ground.
Do we have any European boots to put on the ground in quantity? Do we have the logistics to support them? Or the equipment? We seem to have sent most of our kit to Ukraine already in any case. Berlin/Brussels are still living in the ’70’s, when we had a large European component to NATO. An old soldier who served in those days puts in an acerbic comment on that on an English blog with respect to the BAOR.
” I was 2 Lt. with 157 Regt RCT (V) in the 70’s and we were designated as a NATO / BAOR unit. Back then, the BAOR had a strength of 73,000 similar to today’s fictional army strength yet the BAOR could field 8 Combat Divisions as opposed to today, where we might field 2. Significantly, to field those 8 Combat Divisions we had a total of 27 assorted Generals and Brigadiers yet for today’s forces, it now appears that we have some 210 assorted Generals and Brigadiers heading the Army’s Gravy train.”
https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/a-warning-shot-writ-large-but-putin-wont-attack-the-west/
The article under which that comment appears is similarly dismissive. The Europeans are living in fantasy land and I’m not being cynical, I think, when I believe that all this fantasy war talk from the Europeans has as one of its main purposes getting the Americans in deeper; and to put it out of Trump’s power to do otherwise when he assumes office.
The difference between the two sides is obvious. For the Europeans, this is a mess they’ve got themselves into and they’re stuck with it. For Trump, this is a mess Biden’s got himself into and Trump’s not.
The Americans can walk away from this debacle, therefore. The Europeans can’t.
…………………………..
Now I must, before I turn in, go and see whether my mention of 1812 above has persuaded Eric to keep his hands off Canada.
Doubt it, somehow.
EO,
Neither Trump, Kellogg nor Waltz (the incoming National Security Advisor) have any real desire for Russia or Europe saving face. Unlike the Biden administration’s overall goal of becoming friends with Moscow once again, Trump doesn’t want a friend, he’s transactional. He just wants no nuclear war. He also doesn’t want a permanent enemy in Moscow. The good thing about that is that he is more likely to convince Putin that the US does not really want to see Russia fall apart.
TTG,
The Biden administration was trying to be friends with Russia? That’s some great stuff. Jake Sullivan was a great point man for that.