Russia ‘fires intercontinental ballistic missile’ at Ukraine for first time
Russia ‘fires intercontinental ballistic missile’ at Ukraine for first time
Russia launched an intercontinental ballistic missile at Ukraine for the first time on Thursday morning, Kyiv’s air force said.
Supposedly, an RS-26 was launched from Astrakhan and targeted at infrastructure in Dnipro.
you say "test" I hear "stock problems"
Plus the "Russia launches ICBM!!!" headline potential.
They pull 70 years old tanks out of storage all the time, they have used rare nuke-safe tanks on the battlefield, they have to beg North Korea (!) for help and more.
This just screams stock and command problems.
They are losing so they are getting desperate and thus does tries stupid things.
Armchair General Valmond.
Naïve take.
Silly Russians don't even know what continents are lol.
They misclicked the order and accidentally got INTRA Continental ones
Never buy from Temu
LOL inter and intra probably look the same to a half-drunk Russian.
Wouldn’t it just be that the missile is an ICBM by model and design, and not based on this mission?
Bluff has been called. They'd be stupid to nuke an upwind country they want to conquer anyways.
Escalation was demonstrated. No it’s not escalation all the way, but this is an escalation in response to an escalation.
Perhaps the size of the response escalation, as compared to a declared or assumed promised response escalation, implies some kind of “bluff” was detected. Like maybe Russia said it’d spend 4 escalation points and instead only spent 2 escalation points, but the relative size doesn’t change the fact escalation just occurred. That’s a bad thing.
ruzzia is running out of everything and using its last reserves.
EU and NATO need to pool together every resource to bankrupt this rotten state and drive it from Ukrainian soil. The defeat has to be so harsh that the ruzzkis won't be able to cross any border forever. Confine them to their own country, period.
And denuclearise them.
As seen they cannot behave.
America here.....heh. We're gonna be useless come January!
Actually we might even be working against the cause. It would not surprise me to see trumps cabinet do shitty things like sending russia weapons and money.
In fact, I'm basically expecting it.
Just know that it's not ALL America. Just like 52% of us......or, I should say 52% of the 2024 voting public.
...down to 49% now as the votes keep coming in; the russian propaganda apparatus reaches deep but not yet that deep...
I just hope that Trump's miserable health gets the better of him before he gets the chance to backstab the whole of the western world. As shitty as Vance may be, he comes across as much less in love with Putin than Trumpler.
He got 76,916,317 votes (49.9%) (currently, counting hasn't finished)
https://www.reuters.com/graphics/USA-ELECTION/RESULTS/zjpqnemxwvx/
It's not even 52%, in the end it's ended up being 50% VS 48.3%. He barely got half of all votes with the overall gap only being 2.6 million votes. That's razor thin, the only reason it worked out the way it did (apparent "easy win") is because of the electoral college system, which is a bit biased towards conservatism anyway by giving quite a bit of power to smaller, less populated states.
Besides that, I do agree that it's a bit of a question what will happen. I've seen people say that Rubio and Waltz appear to indicate a slightly different course but no one really knows besides the coming government.
Pretty sure they did this as nuclear sabre rattling in response to the ATACMS and Storm Shadow attacks, not because of resource constraints.
Russia has that black poop from the ground which is a valuable enough resource to be bought by someone for something .
It goes bankrupt if suddenly oil consumption drops 3 times. Or something like that. But not immediately even then, because it has reserves.
EU and NATO are not interested in Russia imploding. They are showing very clearly that their intention is to softly bleed it so that it wouldn't be too aggressive, but also to preserve its current regime, because that regime is convenient.
It's just the sad truth.
As to why Western countries always supported said regime, since Yeltsin usurping power in 1993, - I just don't know.
Russia declares US missile base in Poland a target
uh... that would get all of NATO involved, wouldn't it?
Declaring it? No.
Firing on it? Yes!
Yes, an attack on a NATO member would immedialy invoke article 5 (which has only been done once in history - 9/11)
Well, I'm sure the US military complex is excited to test whether they can swat these out of the sky with their expensive toys. Now they have a chance to try.
And the more Russia launches, surely that technology will improve
What Russia wants us to think:
"O no, allowing Ukraine to fire atacms into Russia was to much escalation! We must back down!"
What we actually think:
"Russia ran out of missiles and has to reach deep down its soviet arsenal to fire the last thing it's got. Next, they'll fire an R7"
Seems like a bit of a waste to launch an intercontinental missile at a country next door, on the same continent. Isn't Russia supposed to have plenty of short and mid range ballistic missiles? I guess they must be running low.
I was under the impression that ICBMs weren't all that great for conventional warheads. Their payload capacity isn't enormous and their accuracy tends to be relatively low- which matters not a jot if you're firing nukes (which do a lot of bang per kilo, and where a few hundred metres either way isn't likely to be critical), but not so great for dropping normal munitions.
I suspect the use of an RS-26 was meant to serve as a provocation/response to the recent ATACMs strikes.
I posted elsewhere about the rumour Russia was going to fire an RS26.
I got called a liar and warmonger.
Well, my next prediction remains the same: Russia WILL eventually use nukes. Because there will come a moment of "use it or lose it", and Russia prefers a destroyed world over an intact one without Russia.
Launching just one sounds like the primary purpose is for messaging, not taking out whatever single target. They want to remind Europeans that they aren't safe just because they live far away. The west has been getting numb to the constant threats of using nuclear weapons. I believe this launch is to give those threats more weight again.
The US will no longer be a threat to Russian ambitions come January. Expect an urgent fear campaign to get the rest of NATO to no longer want to stick their necks out for Ukraine.
Nah, we're not numb. But the fact of the matter is, we can't change anything and letting him win is not going to work, because what's the alternative? Being subjugated or attacked at a later state?
Putin should not forget however, that "we", the EU, also have Nukes and will retaliate, if push comes to shove. Those threats are meaningless either way.
This missile is only "Intercontinental" if you launch it from the edge of a continent. It's got about 6000km of range, which is a lot, but these are obviously meant for use in Europe. They were probably thinking of London and Paris when designing them though.
These missiles are designed with Western Europe in mind. Specifically, to deter them from coming to help Eastern Europe.
IMHO they might be just making a threat this way. Kremlin folks think that's the way diplomacy works. See, we've launched a missile that can be used to send nukes. That's our very subtle and diplomatic warning. We both understand what that means, yes? Let's look very smart and diplomatic.
They may think that looks cool.
It was to send a message similar to how the Iranian drone attack on Israel in April was to send a message that they can launch a bunch of $2,000 drones and cause Israel to have to launch $2 million missiles and aircraft to take them out.
Well I guess we should be giving Ukraine some ICBM's next. Or would that not be fair? :')
So this is confirmation then that the storm shadow strike hit someone important?
How do we know this is the first and not just the first successful launch?
Afaik, ICBMs are trackibly loud. It's difficult to fire one without everyone noticing immediately
I’m curious how the allies know an ICBM isn’t a nuke
Until it explodes, you don't.
You wait till it explodes and check the NDDS.
Dyatlov: What does the dosimeter say?
Akimov: 3.6 roentgen. But that's as high as the meter...
Dyatlov: 3.6 - not great, not terrible.
You don't, which why (aside from cost) nations don't use them as toys.
Yeah. If you want to demonstrate ICBM capability you launch a satellite, especially a lunar satellite. Everyone plays nice and celebrates the science while understanding that your rocketry can get a payload into orbit with enough fuel and accuracy to accelerate and maneuver to exactly where you want to go.
If an ICBM comes at a MAD nation standing orders for nuclear strikes go into effect. Using it with conventional munitions on a MAD nation is a fast way to get your entire population killed without returning the favor.
Intressting. So by delivering more of them to Ukraine we lower Russias arsenal.
Ukraine has not received ICBMs, articles stating Ukraine has received long range missiles are wrong, Ukraine has only received SHORT ranged missiles. up to 300 miles. It's longer range than artillery, but not long range missiles. Long range missiles have several thousand miles range.
Obviously. ICBMs are pretty much useless to Ukraine and without nukes to Russia as well. They are acurate enough to destroy something using a nuke. So missing by a few hundret meters is fine. With conventional explosive that is however pretty much useless.
This is most likely the answer for Biden allowing the use of those short range system and it would be wonderfull to see Russia blow up its nuclear missiles for nothing.
That's interesting.
Video of impacts (supposedly)
I'll wait for a non-twitter source
Ok, thanks for sharing.
Death to X