November 22, 2024 - 10:00am
A parade in Red Square has traditionally been the opportunity for Moscow to demonstrate its latest weaponry. In these tense times, however, a defence industry facility in Ukraine was instead chosen as the location for Russia to show off its newest missile to the world.
Yesterday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Moscow had that morning tested an experimental non-nuclear hypersonic ballistic missile, “Oreshnik”, by firing it at a Dnipro industrial complex. The strike came in response to Kyiv’s attacks on targets in the Bryansk and Kursk oblasts of Russia, using American ATACMS and Franco-British Storm Shadow missiles.
Moscow’s move was clearly more about posturing than projectile development. After the US permitted Ukraine to fire long range missiles into Russia, Putin had to reassure his domestic population, and project strength to the West through a bold, albeit empty, gesture. The US was privately informed in advance to prevent misunderstandings and miscalculation. More publicly, from Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova’s suspiciously well-timed and well-amplified telephone call about the strike, midway through a press briefing to Putin’s surprise televised address, the news was intended to travel at hypersonic speed.
There is also the lack of military value to consider. Such missiles are low in accuracy, high in cost. US officials commented that Russia likely only possesses a few, and the weapon itself would not constitute a “game changer”, not least as Kyiv has withstood attacks from missiles with larger warheads. The Oreshnik appeared to carry a payload exclusively associated with nuclear-capable missiles, yet had not been loaded with one. This suggests it was — along with Russia’s newly revised nuclear doctrine — merely the latest stage of Putin’s long-running strategy of making nuclear threats whenever one of his “red lines” has been crossed. Such sabre-rattling has invariably come to naught before.
However, for all the obvious bluff and bluster, this situation still holds considerable peril. Putin alleged that “there are no means of counteracting such a weapon” and, while the words of Russia’s President should always be taken with a mountain of salt, Ukraine’s air force managed to successfully stop other missiles within that salvo but not the new Oreshnik. He further threatened possible future hits on Ukrainian territory, accompanied by a none-too-subtle warning that it may next be used to target civilians and “citizens of friendly countries”, a reference to foreign military contractors assisting Ukraine with long-range missiles.
Moving beyond the Oreshnik, Putin warned that Russia will “determine the targets for further tests of our newest missile systems on the basis of threats to the security of the Russian Federation”. He promised to “respond just as decisively and symmetrically…in the event of an escalation of aggressive actions”. Between now and January, there is likely to be a great deal Putin finds objectionable. The current US administration is striving to do as much as it can now to put Ukraine in the best position for battling, on or heading to the negotiating table once President-elect Donald Trump takes power.
With speed taking precedence over caution, Washington has just approved sending to Kyiv anti-personnel land mines to blunt the advances of Russian ground forces, despite earlier hesitation from the US over the risk to civilians. While vital supplies of weaponry to Ukraine are to be welcomed as a necessary obstacle to Russia’s battlefield advances, recent drone barrages between Kyiv and Moscow have shown how tensions can quickly escalate in this especially febrile atmosphere: of a war potentially in its desperate last stretches.
Ukraine’s Western partners should realise that, as they seek to compensate for their earlier reluctance by loosening the supply of weaponry to Ukraine, there will be other escalatory gestures from Russia. While Putin is unlikely to use nuclear weapons when he can just run down the clock until January, the increasingly provocative use of ballistic missiles will claim lives and fuel tensions. As Putin himself warned, “there will always be a response”.
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SubscribeThe war just passed the 1000 day mark and will continue at least until Trump is in office, Trump may try to stop the war by making some kind of deal, I expect this to fail. So the war will continue
As Lavrov has pointed out several times “the war will be fought to its conclusion”
In that case we must keep going until the Russians see sense.
I’m fairly certain that Trump will (and indeed should) offer them a face saving deal. It’s entirely on them if they’re foolish enough not to accept it. Just as all the deaths, destruction and waste from 1000 days of war in Ukraine are entirely on the Russians and no one else.
I’m also fairly sure that Trump will have a Plan B in reserve.
I’m not sure on quite what authority you feel confident to predict that any Trump deal will fail. If I recall correctly, your statements and predictions about this conflict haven’t exactly been accurate so far ! I seem to remember the incessant chorus of “the Russians are winning” 2 years ago.
Yes, Peter. You have convinced me that ‘we’ must keep going.
I have to say, though, it’s getting a little cold in the trench here. I wish Sergeant Polovshkho would rotate us out so we could at least get some hot tea back in Pokrovsk. (Those bloody drone operators have all the luck, don’t they?)
I can’t feel my effin’ toes anymore. If the Russian artillery were to blow my feet off, I’m not even sure I’d notice.
But, yes, ‘we’ must keep going.
It will fail because the Russians don’t trust the US, and Trump is unlikely to offer much anyway
If that’s the case, there’s nothing to negotiate !
But you could equally state that the US don’t trust the Russians. But I notice you don’t mention that.
The Ukrainians and the Russians had a deal done way back in 2022 until the US/UK told the Ukrainians they could do better by talking on the Russians in a war, with western wonder weapons the Russians would be doomed. How long before the Ukrainians figure out they have been suckers
It doesn’t really matter one way or the other if the US trust the Russians, its not US troops dying every day. What happens to the Ukrainians doesn’t really matter to the US
Just like German total defeat in WW II and the revelation of the extent of the regime’s lying and sheer disdain for the sacrifice of patriotic Germans turned Germany into a committed democracy, so – hopefully – also will the revelations that are dawning on ordinary Ukrainians on how badly they’ve been had, by the US, the EU, and their own government.
And that would be a democracy which is trying to ban the AfD…
Make no mistake, Germany is, and always has been, and will be authoritarian. The only difference is the aim of the authoritarianism…firstly a German empire…then a Republic…then national can’t mention it…then “democracy”…all to be enforced by state power.
Regrettably Germany can’t cope with the chaos which a democracy entails. More regrettably it seems neither can most Western countries. So Ukraine stands no chance whatsoever.
That is a trite and silly stereotyping.
If Germany were so authoritarian, the AfD would already have been banned. The COVID years have revealed pretty much all of the vaunted freedom-loving democracies as being hypocritical, lying, intrusive nanny-states, with censorship – under the Orwellian term “fact-checking” – rampant. They liberally applied “cancellation” – refined by the StaSi as Zersetzung – to anyone who used their “freedom of expression”. Peaceful demonstrations were targeted by out-of-control riot police and prohibited, referring to the Constitution became a terrorist act.
“Beam” and “mote” seems appropriate here…
My point is that Germany is not a “committed democracy”…far from, with a long history of authoritarianism which is becoming more prominent.
And yes of course the Western countries are precisely as you say.
There is in fact a lot to negotiate – the future security architecture of Europe has to be redefined. Personally, I believe the Helsinki Final Act of 1975 is a good reference point, but that would take diplomats, and the US and the EU have locked away their diplomats in some basement somewhere. The current crop of foreign secretaries in the EU and in the US are the antithesis of diplomats.
Lavrov, so wise.
For all wars are always fought to their conclusions.
“Between now and January, there is likely to be a great deal Putin finds objectionable.”
Including the Russian population.
Anti-war protests in Russia (2022–present)
“Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022, anti-war demonstrations and protests broke out across Russia. As well as the demonstrations, a number of petitions and open letters have been penned in opposition to the war, and a number of public figures, both cultural and political, have released statements against the war.”
The protests have been met with widespread repression by the Russian authorities. According to OVD-Info, at least 14,906 people were detained from 24 February to 13 March.
So?
‘So?’ yourself. Putin has NO right under the postwar consensus to invade Ukraine’s sovereign territory. The violent enforcement of that norm is the bedrock of national sovereignty. If Russia thinks the threat of a nuclear strike or else total war will be enough to intimidate Western allies into abandoning Ukraine, he’s got another thing coming. Any major escalation he makes toward such all-out destruction will be answered in kind (or tenfold, if necessary). If Putin wishes to commit suic*de and bathe the human race in nuclear hellfire, that’s on him. We don’t negotiate with terrorists. Because in the end, we know he cares more about self-preservation than the expansion of his petty fiefdom. Enough is enough.
Presumably he has the same right as the USA and UK to invade Iraq…Afghanistan…bomb Libya..or is that different..
A message to UnHerd to be FAR more careful about the quality of your reporting here.
Bethany Elliot writes, for example: “recent drone barrages between Kyiv and Moscow have shown how tensions can quickly escalate in this especially febrile atmosphere: of a war potentially in its desperate last stretches.”
I follow the link to better understand what she means by this cryptic sentence.
It takes me to a BBC article that in no way supports this statement. It doesn’t even mention the word ‘drone’.
Elsewhere, the author claims that the missiles lack accuracy. The source link is behind a FT paywall, but sources I have read say that the missile struck its intended target, an industrial complex outside Dnipro.
She also writes, “However, for all the obvious bluff and bluster…”
How does this reporter know this is a bluff? We have a precision strike with a hypersonic missile that could easily carry a nuclear warhead. Maybe Putin is bluffing, but it would be the first time he has bluffed. In 2021 he said he would invade Ukraine, in 2022 he invaded Ukraine. So if it’s a bluff, it certainly isn’t an ‘obvious’ one.
As for bluster? What the hell does that even mean? Has Bethany listened to 5 minutes of him speaking? His speech is precise and spase, if anything understated. Look up the word ‘bluster’ in a dictionary.
It’s like Bethany doesn’t think very carefully about the words she writes. Maybe AI did it for her, I don’t know.
I don’t think the author has listened to Putins speech. It is pretty clear that he is not bluffing and he will strike NATO bases in Poland unless the West stops the use of long range missiles. Very little discussion on MSM – but some very good discussions on non MSM e.g. Redacted – The general view is that Putin has got lots of very accurate hypersonic missiles and is prepared to identify exact targets, prewarn NATO and then use them.
What a load of utter nonsense.
It Putin’s stupid enough to start a war with NATO, he’ll get flattened.
The “general view” was that Russia would walk over Ukraine in only a few days.
Why haven’t these super-accurate hypersonic missiles been used in Ukraine ?
We really do have nothing to fear except fear itself here.
If there’s a missile exchange between NATO and Russia we ALL get “flattened”.
“For after the first exchange of missiles, the ashes of the capitalists and the ashes of the communists will be indistinguishable. Not even the most passionate ideologue will be able to point out the difference, for he too will be dead. In an age where so much is uncertain, there is this certainty.”
John Kenneth Galbraith
Well done. It’s the bluff and bluster of western journalism that is our greatest risk at present, in this case in the form of the oft-repeated “Putin will do nothing, he’s toothless.”
We see this across the board, of course. To see it in UnHerd only underlines that this journal is about 80% Herd.
I subscribe for the 20%.
You’re being generous. I give it about 90%.
Give the woman a break. She gets the gist of this right. The missile Russia used was an IRBM, which is used just for nuclear warheads. This is the first time a missile like this has been used in combat, ever. It was a statement only, full of bluff and bluster.
Some think the MIRVs from this missile carried no warheads at all, and they were targeted at about the same target. This was not the hypersonic missile Russia has tested in the past. That missile is not ballistic.
What worries me about this is not Russia’s use of this missile per se. It’s the fact that Russia felt like it had to respond to Ukraine’s escalation of the war, which has been enabled by Joe Biden’s actions. We still have two more months of a visibly incompetent president’s term in office. For all our sakes, Joe Biden, don’t do things like this. Leave it to your successor.
Don’t listen to him, Brandon! Embrace the dark side! Do the right thing and give the Ukrainians the nukes they need to choose their own destiny. No matter what bs Trump tries to pull. The only thing to fear is Fear itself.
Is Ukraine going to win this war right up to the point where there isn’t a single Ukrainian man still alive?
That seems to be the idea. Washington airheads (like Jake Sullivan) are pumping the idea that Ukraine should conscript anyone over 18 years. While anyone with more than 10 neurons knows that demographic is (A) very small in number and (B) absolutely necessary if Ukraine hopes to rebuild after the war.
The way things are going, the largest export from Ukraine after the war will be young, unmarried women. Because there certainly will be no attraction for them to remain and no eligible men to support them if they do.
Many young Ukrainian mothers with children have already left. My city has many of them. I see them at Costco. I talk with them as they work in my dentist’s office. I doubt they will return to Ukraine. If their husbands are alive after the war, they will join their families abroad. Their future abroad looks better than their future in Ukraine.
What country do you live in?
We don’t negotiate with terrorists.
slava
It has to be emphasised that “January” is a WESTERN date, not a Russian date. Russia is winning the war, and whether the formal acknowledgment comes in December, January, or February, is irrelevant. Nothing the West could do will change this equation – the West can precipitate WW III and a nuclear holocaust, but short of that, the West’s only options are bluff, bluster, posturing, desperate “wonder weapons”, and sacrificing more Ukrainian lives.
A more pertinent question is why the electorally and popularly discredited, lame-duck neoliberal Obama/Biden administration and its sycophantic NATO allies persist in poking the Bear by recklessly crossing Putin’s ‘red lines.’ NATO has been goading Russia into this proxy war in Ukraine since the Cold War’s end. To what purpose, and in pursuit of what common good for the collective West?
In answer to the author’s question.
Of course not.
Let’s hope Ukraine is defeated soon.
I wonder how long it will be before Zelensky is dispatched by his own people. According to a Gallup poll of Ukrainians released about a week ago, most Ukrainians want a negotiated end to the war ASAP. And it’s not even winter yet.
I’ve changed my mind. It’s past time for an “Article 5” situation and for the West to remove this petty tyrant permanently.
It’s a bit like Hilter’s “wunderwafen” when it became clear that he was losing the war.