The Oreshnik missile launched Tuesday appears to have taken off from Russia’s Kapustin Yar rocket base, about 800 kilometers from Dnipro, the site of fierce fighting.
This is the first time an IRBM has been used in combat. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, ratified by the United States and the Soviet Union in 1988, banned ground-launched IRBMs. The United States withdrew from the treaty in 2019 during the first Trump administration, citing Russia’s non-compliance. At the time, U.S. officials noted that China, which was not a signatory to the treaty, had more than 1,000 IRBMs in its arsenal.
Putin said Western air defenses were not capable of destroying Oreshnik missiles in flight. However, this claim cannot be verified. He said Russia would warn Ukraine before similar missile attacks in the future to allow civilians to flee the danger zone.
Putin said the Oreshnik missile strikes its target at speeds of up to Mach 10, or 2.5 to 3 kilometers per second. “Existing air defense systems around the world, including those under development in Europe by the United States, cannot intercept such missiles.”
Global war?
In perhaps the most chilling part of his remarks, Putin said the conflict in Ukraine was “escalating to a global scale” and that Russia was entitled to use its missiles against Western countries that supply weapons for Ukraine to use against Russian targets. .
“If the situation escalates, we will respond firmly and kindly,” President Putin said. “I urge the ruling elites of countries seeking to use military force against Russia to seriously consider this issue.”
Changes to the nuclear doctrine approved by President Putin earlier this week also lower the threshold for Russia to use nuclear weapons to counter conventional attacks that threaten Russia’s “territorial integrity.”
It seems like this has already happened. Ukraine launched an offensive in Russia’s Kursk region last August and took control of more than 1,000 square kilometers of Russian land. The Russian army, with support from the North Korean army, is launching a counterattack to retake the territory.
Prime Minister Singh said Russia’s deployment of North Korean troops was “incremental” and that Putin “could choose to end this war today.”
U.S. officials say Russian troops are suffering about 1,200 deaths and injuries a day in the conflict. Last September, The Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. intelligence sources estimated that one million Ukrainians and Russians were killed or wounded in the war.
The UN Human Rights Office most recently reported that 11,973 civilians, including 622 children, have been killed since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
“We warned Russia not to do this in 2022, but they did it anyway, so there are consequences,” Singh said. “But we don’t want to see this escalate into a wider regional conflict. “We do not seek war with Russia.”
This story originally appeared on: Ars Technica.
