Oreshnik one year on

The video clearly shows that the Pivdenmash territory was attacked by warheads of a certain missile, which were moving at very high speed (between the flash in the sky and the explosion on the ground — about 0.5–0.6 seconds). That is, the warheads were moving, at least at the end of their trajectory, at hypersonic speed. Assuming that the lower edge of the clouds over the Dnipro River in the video on the day of the strike was at an altitude of approximately 1.5–2 km above the ground, the probable speed of the warheads was 2,680–3,570 km/h (8–10M). Pure hypersonic.

Conversations with former officers of the Soviet Strategic Missile Forces did little to clarify the situation. In general, the community agreed that Oreshnik was a kind of cut-down version of a classic long-range intercontinental missile, from which the second stage had been removed. Experts also noted that before the separation of the warheads, the carrier rocket moved as vertically as possible, which is typical for long-range missiles, because when firing, there is an urgent need to reduce the so-called dead zone around the potential target area. In other words, the higher the altitude and the steeper the trajectory from the apogee downwards, the smaller the area in which the carrier rocket will detach the intermediate stage (if any), deploy the warhead and the warheads will begin to manoeuvre, each moving towards its target.

The rocket was launched from a silo launcher at the Kapustin Yar nuclear missile test site in the Astrakhan Region. The straight-line distance from the silo to Pivdenmash is approximately 790 km, and the length of the parabolic trajectory is about 2,000 km. The rocket flew for 12–15 minutes, which is a bit long for an ICBM.

Speculation about what the Russians were firing revealed the following: at the end of the USSR, its Strategic Rocket Forces were equipped with the 15P645 Pioneer missile complex (also known as RSD-10) with a firing range of 5,500 km. In Russia, it was modernised into the 15P158 Topol (RSD-12M) and 15P165M Yars (RSD-12M2R) intercontinental complexes.

Photo: wikipedia.org

Self-propelled launcher 15U175M of the RS-24 Yars complex

A by-product of the intercontinental Topol was the 15P159 Kuryer medium-range missile system (development was halted in 1991). In the early 2000s, Russian designers obtained the Kuryer blueprints and began designing the Rubezh (RS-26) missile system. They wanted it to be like the Yars, but with a shorter rocket and tractor and a shorter firing range of approximately 5,800 km.

The Strategic Rocket Forces‘ ‘pensioners’ club’ concluded that what had struck at Pivdenmash was most likely some kind of reincarnation of a medium-range missile system very similar to the RS-26 Rubezh.

Possible appearance of the RS-26 Rubezh

The next point of discussion was the non-simultaneous arrival of warheads at the target. It is no secret that the warhead section of a serious missile, in addition to warheads, also carries decoy targets designed to complicate the work of the enemy’s missile defence system. When the warhead is deployed, the warheads and decoy targets can be separated simultaneously or sequentially, but very smoothly so as not to disrupt the flight path of the warhead, which will not be able to correct its flight at high speed and ensure the accuracy of the strike. In other words, the warheads or heavy decoy targets must arrive at the target simultaneously or almost simultaneously. But according to Pivdenmash, they did not arrive simultaneously. As agreed, the strike was delivered not by one missile, but by 2–6, i.e. it was a group strike. The payload limit for RS-26 missiles is plus or minus 1,200 kg, meaning that one missile would not be able to deliver six heavy decoy targets to Dnipro.

Let’s say a few words about the economics of this performance. The use of medium-range ICBMs in non-nuclear equipment is a circus without horses and clowns. Why? If Rubezh is indeed a continuation of Topol and Yars, then it is produced in the same factories as its ancestors. After all, there is nowhere else to physically do so. In 2020, the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces received 22 missiles. That is, in the best non-war times, it was possible to assemble less than 25–30 ICBMs. Now there are other priorities, now it’s all about Iskanders, Kalibrs and various other Xs. The nuclear shield is still behind the cupboard in the hallway.

Also, a few words about the results of the strike: if it was a response to Ukrainian strikes with Storm Shadow/SCALP missiles on targets in the Kursk Region, then after the strike on Pivdenmash, the enemy received an ATACMS missile strike on the Khalino airfield in the same Kursk Region. In other words, no one on our side of the front line was intimidated. If this was a rehearsal for World War III for Western viewers, then once again, they missed the mark. The strike with strategic weapons, albeit non-nuclear, demonstrated the baseness of the Kremlin regime, which: a) is incapable of defeating Ukraine in a conventional war, so it resorted to rusty nuclear scrap; b) finally emphasised its immorality and savagery with another bold brown line.

Putin seems to have finally lost his mind if he has taken it upon himself to publicly destroy the mechanism of nuclear deterrence, which is strategic weapons. In the intelligence units, where such events are recorded, a tick has already been placed, and if a course of action has to be chosen, the dietary scenarios will be rejected. During my cadet years, my platoon commander gave everyone a plus or minus every day. But sometimes he gave the letter ‘A’. At graduation, they explained to us that ‘A’ stands for ‘asshole’. So they gave the bunker an ‘A’. Maybe even two.

Photo: Security Service of Ukraine

Wreckage of Oreshnik

Two thoughts for discussion in the smoking rooms:

— According to the Air Force, the Russians used approximately 6,300 cruise and ballistic missiles capable of carrying tactical nuclear weapons (including Iskander-M/K, Kinzhal, Kalibr, Kh-101/555, Kh-22/32, Onyx, Zircon, and Tochka-U) to struck Ukraine. This means that the arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons has been reduced, if a strategic missile, and probably more than one, was used for a strike at a distance of 790 km. In other words, the shortage of short-range missiles was compensated for with medium-range missiles. And this is a good signal from the nuclear basements of the non-empire. At the same time, Europe should at least thank us for the fact that 6,300 is not for them. Money would be fine too;

— There are suspicions that Moscow is trying to circumvent the ban on ground-based intermediate-range missiles by disguising them as ICBMs. The Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles (500–5,500 km) expired on 2 August 2019 after the United States withdrew from it due to Russia’s violation of the treaty. Since then, there have been no legal restrictions. On the one hand, the Russians can drop practically anything on our heads and formally not violate anything, on the other hand, nothing like that is observed there at the final stage of development, and the defence industry is at its peak and will not be able to increase production. The question is: what should we prepare for?

What will the conclusions be?

• What the non-empire is pushing on the world as the Oreshnik looks more like the RS-26 Rubezh than the Oreshnik.
• Neither the Defence Forces nor anyone else in Europe has missile defence systems capable of intercepting such Oreshniks.
• THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defence, USA), Hetz (Israel) and Aegis BMD (Ballistic Missile Defence, USA) ship-based systems are capable of intercepting Oreshnik and similar weapons. There is an opinion that in the terminal section of the ICBM trajectory, it can be intercepted by SAMP-T complexes with Aster 30 Block II missiles (France/Italy) and MIM-104F Patriot with PAC-3 missiles (USA). There are also Prithvi Defense Vehicle Mark 2 (India) and S-400/S-500. None of the aforementioned missile defence systems have intercepted ICBMs in real warfare conditions. The S-400 has not yet coped with ATACMS, Storm Shadow/SCALP, or Neptune, so let them train.