The Oreshnik missile fired on Tuesday appears to have taken off from Russia’s Kapustin Yar rocket base, about 800 kilometers from Dnipropetrovsk, far from the heavy fighting.
This is the first time 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 under the first Trump administration, citing Russia’s non-compliance. At the time, U.S. officials noted that China, which is not a signatory to the treaty, had more than 1,000 IRBMs.
President Putin has said that Western air defenses are not capable of destroying Oleshnik missiles in flight, but this claim cannot be verified. He said Russia would warn Ukraine ahead of a similar missile attack in the future so that civilians could get out of the danger zone.
According to President Putin, the Oleshnik missile hits targets at speeds of up to Mach 10, or 2.5 to 3 kilometers per second. “Existing air defense systems around the world, including those the United States is developing in Europe, are unable to intercept such missiles.”
World war?
In perhaps the most chilling part of his remarks, Putin said the Ukraine conflict was “becoming global” and that Russia was supplying weapons for Ukraine to use against Russian targets. He said he had the right to use missiles against Western countries.
“If the situation escalates, we will respond firmly and kindly,” Putin said. “I would advise the ruling elites of countries planning to use military force against Russia to seriously consider this.”
Changes to 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 looks like this is already happening. Ukraine launched an offensive into Russia’s Kursk region in August, capturing more than 1,000 square kilometers of Russian land. The Russian military, with support from the North Korean military, has launched a counterattack to retake territory.
Shin called Russia’s invitation to North Korean troops “escalating” and said Putin “could choose to end this war today.”
U.S. officials said Russian forces were suffering about 1,200 casualties per day in the war. In September, the Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. intelligence sources estimated that 1 million Ukrainians and Russians were killed or wounded in the war.
The United Nations Human Rights Office 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 in 2022 not to do something like this, and yet they did it, so there are consequences,” Singh said. “But we don’t want this to develop into a broader regional conflict. We don’t want a war with Russia.”
This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.
