Russia fires a new missile to destroy Ukrainian aerospace facility as a menacing warning to NATO

Russia struck a Ukrainian aerospace plant called Yuzhmash with a hypersonic ballistic missile that carried a non-nuclear warhead.

“There was, among other things, a combat-conditions test of one of Russia’s newest intermediate-range missile systems. In this case it was a ballistic missile in a non-nuclear hypersonic version,” confirmed President Putin.

The missile is named Oreshnik, which can roughly be translated as hazel bush. Though the new ballistic missile fired by Russia struck and destroyed a military-industrial facility in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, but its real mission was delivering a deadly new message to NATO.

Hours after the strike a debate started whether the Ukrainian plant was hit by an intercontinental ballistic missile. The mystery got cleared only after President Putin appeared on TV.

The new, intermediate-range ballistic missile flies at 10 times the speed of sound. Modern air defence systems that exist in the world and anti-missile defences created by the Americans in Europe can’t intercept such missiles.

The attack marked the first time that such a missile was used in the war — or in any conflict.The dramatic strike back came in a week of soaring tensions by Joe Biden’s senile action of permitting Zelensky to strike deep inside Russia with US supplied missiles.

As Ukraine struck targets in Russia with American-made longer-range missiles Russia responded with deadly accuracy. This is a direct grim warning to NATO of te lowering of the threshold for using nuclear arsenal.

President Putin said that Russia developed Oreshnik in response to the U.S. development and deployment of missiles with a similar range.

Intermediate-range missiles, or IRBMs, can fly between 500 to 5,500 kilometres. Ukrainian military officials said the missile was launched from the Russian region of Astrakhan on the Caspian Sea, 800 kilometres to the east.

While Russia has launched cruise missiles at Ukraine from even longer ranges, the new intermediate range missile marked the first such use of this kind of ground-launched ballistic missile, which can carry a much heavier conventional payload and could also be fitted with multiple nuclear warheads.

Matthew Savill, director of military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute, noted that the missile used Thursday has a range “way beyond any of that seen in this conflict so far and possibly the first ever use in combat.

“He said the missile was capable of releasing multiple warheads at extremely high speeds, even though they are less accurate than cruise missiles or short-range ballistic missiles.

Video of the strike showed six fiery trails followed by powerful explosions — an apparent sign of the multiple warheads being used. The authenticity of the videos couldn’t be independently confirmed.

As for Russia’s claim that the Western systems could not intercept the missile, Savill said “these are quite hard to defend against” even for advanced U.S. Patriot systems.

“You’re dropping multiple independently targetable warheads, MIRVs, at extremely high speed, so even Patriot will struggle to basically intercept those,” he said.

President Putin has clearly articulated that use of the Oreshnik was a response to Ukrainian strikes on Russian military facilities in Bryansk and Kursk regions earlier this week with Western-supplied weapons.

One of those strikes killed and wounded an unspecified number of Russian servicemen, which the Kremlin leader said added “elements of a global character” to the conflict.

Putin has warned previously that use of the Western weapons would mean that Russia and NATO are at war.”We believe that we have the right to use our weapons against military facilities of the countries that allow to use their weapons against our facilities,” he said.

“And in case of escalation of aggressive actions we will respond resolutely in a mirror way.”

If Russia launches more strikes on Ukraine with the new missile, it will warn of its use in advance to allow civilians to reach safety as a “humanitarian” gesture, Putin said, adding that Moscow isn’t worried about tipping off the enemy since it cannot stop the attack”I would recommend the ruling elites of the countries that are hatching plans to use their military contingents against Russia to seriously think about it,” Putin said.

Savill said the new missile is sending a fear-inducing signal from Russia that “we’ve got stuff that outrages you.”

The larger message to the West is that “we’re happy to enter into a competition around intermediate-range ballistic missiles. P.S. These could be nuclear tipped. Do you really want to take that risk?’

“Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy secretary of Russia’s Security Council that is chaired by Putin, stepped up the rhetoric by posting a video of the missile attack on Ukraine and chastising the West.”

So, that’s what you wanted? Well, you’ve damn well got it! A hypersonic ballistic missile attack,” he posted on X.

In a speech to the nation, a rattled Volodymyr Zelensky denounced the attack and accused Moscow of using Ukraine as a testing ground for its new weapon.

Why he didn’t think of a retaliation when striking deep inside Russia with American supplied missile ? “Today, our insane neighbor has once again shown what they truly are, and how they despise dignity, freedom, and human life itself.

And how terrified they are,” he said…..who is really terrified is clearly indicated by this statement of Zelensky.

However USA it seems is not ready to give up on Zelensky. Two U.S. officials who were not authorized to comment publicly about the sensitive matter and thus spoke on condition of anonymity said Russia only has a few of this type of experimental missile in its possession and it is not a capability that is expected to be regularly deployed against Ukraine.

U.K. Defence Minister John Healey too has jumped in to defend the escalatory actions of Joe Biden and Zelensky by stating “We have seen in recent weeks a very clear escalation from Putin and his forces,” he said.

“They have stepped up attacks on the energy system in Ukraine ahead of winter, they have stepped up attacks on civilian centers killing children, they have deployed at least 10,000 North Korean troops to the battle front line.”