{"id":44583,"date":"2024-11-24T01:49:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-23T17:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/russian-ballistic-missile-attack-on-ukraine-portends-new-era-of-warfare\/"},"modified":"2024-11-24T01:49:00","modified_gmt":"2024-11-23T17:49:00","slug":"russian-ballistic-missile-attack-on-ukraine-portends-new-era-of-warfare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/russian-ballistic-missile-attack-on-ukraine-portends-new-era-of-warfare\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian ballistic missile attack on Ukraine portends new era of warfare"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two days ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a change in the country\u2019s policy for employing nuclear weapons in conflict. Then, on Thursday, Russia attacked the Ukrainian city of Dnipro with a new type of ballistic missile capable of one day delivering multiple nuclear warheads to distant targets with little warning.<\/p>\n

Putin says his ballistic missile attack on Ukraine is a warning to the West.<\/p>\n

These events are just part of what has been a week of escalation in the war between Russia and Ukraine. In recent days, Ukraine fired US-made ATACMS tactical ballistic missiles and UK-supplied Storm Shadow missiles at targets in Russian territory for the first time. This followed approval by President Joe Biden for Ukraine to use US-provided longer-range missiles against Russian targets. Previously, Ukraine was only permitted to use them on its own territory.<\/p>\n

In a rare televised statement Thursday, Putin said he ordered Russia\u2019s military to strike Dnipro, home to Soviet-era rocket factories, using a ballistic missile named \u201cOreshnik.\u201d This means \u201chazelnut tree\u201d in Russian. The attack was the first use of the Oreshnik missile \u201cunder combat conditions,\u201d Putin said.<\/p>\n

Videos from Dnipro posted on social media show multiple projectiles exploding as they impact the ground at high speed. Local residents in Dnipro said the Oreshnik missile struck an industrial plant operated by PA Pivdenmash, formerly known as Yuzhmash. The PA Pivdenmash factory previously manufactured booster stages for the Soviet-era Zenit rocket and, most recently, first-stage tanks for the US-operated Antares rocket for Northrop Grumman.<\/p>\n

Threats from the Kremlin<\/h2>\n

Sabrina Singh, the Pentagon\u2019s deputy press secretary, called the weapon used Thursday an \u201cexperimental intermediate-range ballistic missile\u201d based on Russia\u2019s RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile model. While the strike before dawn Thursday used conventional munitions, the impact of multiple projectiles suggests the missile employed multiple reentry vehicles, or MIRVs, similar to the way Russia might use the missile in a nuclear attack.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

Singh said the missile could be refitted with different types of conventional or nuclear warheads. She said Russia notified the US government of the planned attack \u201cbriefly\u201d before it happened through nuclear risk-reduction channels.<\/p>\n

Ukrainian government officials initially said the attack on Dnipro was by an ICBM rather than an intermediate-range weapon, or IRBM.<\/p>\n

ICBMs typically follow long, arcing trajectories that take the missiles into space, above the discernible atmosphere, as they travel to faraway targets. An intermediate-range missile, classified as a weapon that can travel between 3,000 and 5,500 kilometers, could also reach space, although the exact altitude reached by the Oreshnik missile was unknown Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn IRBM and an ICBM, they can have similar flight paths. They can have high trajectories,\u201d Singh said. \u201cThey can carry large payloads, but the main difference lies in the range and the strategic purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Oreshnik missile launched Tuesday apparently took off from Russia\u2019s Kapustin Yar rocket base roughly 800 kilometers from Dnipro, well away from intense fighting.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Firefighters work at the site of a Russian missile strike in Dnipro, Ukraine, on November 21, 2024. Ukrainian officials said a building of the rehabilitation center for people with disabilities was damaged by the Russian attack.<\/p>\n

Credit:
\n Press Service of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Dnipropetrovsk Region \/ Handout\/Anadolu via Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

This is the first time any 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 US pulled out of the treaty in 2019 under the first Trump administration, citing non-compliance from Russia. At the time, US officials noted that China, which was not a signatory to the treaty, possessed more than 1,000 IRBMs in its arsenal.<\/p>\n

Putin said Western air defenses are not capable of destroying the Oreshnik missile in flight, although this claim can\u2019t be verified. He said Russia would provide warnings to Ukraine in advance of similar missile attacks in the future to allow civilians to escape danger zones.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

The Oreshnik missiles strike their targets at speeds of up to Mach 10, or 2.5 to 3 kilometers per second, Putin said. \u201cThe existing air defense systems around the world, including those being developed by the US in Europe, are unable to intercept such missiles.\u201d<\/p>\n

A global war?<\/h2>\n

In perhaps the most chilling part of his remarks, Putin said the conflict in Ukraine is \u201ctaking on global dimensions\u201d and said Russia is entitled to use missiles against Western countries supplying weapons for Ukraine to use against Russian targets.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the event of escalation, we will respond decisively and in kind,\u201d Putin said. \u201cI advise the ruling elites of those countries planning to use their military forces against Russia to seriously consider this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The change in nuclear doctrine authorized by Putin earlier this week also lowers the threshold for Russia\u2019s use of nuclear weapons to counter a conventional attack that threatens Russian \u201cterritorial integrity.\u201d<\/p>\n

This seems to have already happened. Ukraine launched an offensive into Russia\u2019s Kursk region in August, taking control of more than 1,000 square kilometers of Russian land. Russian forces, assisted by North Korean troops, are staging a counteroffensive to try to retake the territory.<\/p>\n

Singh called Russia\u2019s invitation of North Korean troops \u201cescalatory\u201d and said Putin could \u201cchoose to end this war today.\u201d<\/p>\n

US officials say Russian forces are suffering some 1,200 deaths or injuries per day in the war. In September, The Wall Street Journal reported that US intelligence sources estimated that a million Ukrainians and Russians had been killed or wounded in the war.<\/p>\n

The UN Human Rights Office most recently reported that 11,973 civilians have been killed, including 622 children, since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion in February 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe warned Russia back in 2022 not to do this, and they did it anyways, so there are consequences for that,\u201d Singh said. \u201cBut we don\u2019t want to see this escalate into a wider regional conflict. We don\u2019t seek war with Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two days ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a change in the country\u2019s policy for employing nuclear weapons in conflict. Then, on Thursday, Russia attacked the Ukrainian city of Dnipro with a new type of ballistic missile capable of one day delivering multiple nuclear warheads to distant targets with little warning. Putin says his ballistic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9630,9631,439,8626,352,3860],"class_list":["post-44583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-icbm","tag-irbm","tag-military","tag-missile","tag-russia","tag-ukraine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44583"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}