Putin proposes test

What a great way to start the Christmas week: Vladimir Putin has thrown down a gauntlet to the west… and it’s kind of amusing. The pity of it is that with Joe in the White House, Vlad’s challenging an unarmed man to a battle of wits.

The subject is Russia’s vaunted Mach 10 Oreshnik missile. Russia says it is unstoppable by western air defense systems. but we think advanced systems like Patriots can handle them. There is a bit of precedent for our opinion:

Notably, the Kinzhal, a previously much-hyped missile, was also touted by Russia as hypersonic and “unstoppable.” But it has reportedly been downed dozens of times by Patriot batteries in Ukraine.

The Oreshnik is a newer, faster, MIRV (Multiple Independently-targeted Re-entry Vehicle if memory serves) missile a couple of iterations newer than the Kinzhals and is thought to be based on the SR-26 IRBM. Did I mention the Oreshnik is nuclear-capable as well?

That velocity makes it extremely difficult for anti-missile defenses to counter. The Oreshnik is also believed to deploy a cluster payload and is capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

Additionally, the missile’s purported range allows it to hit any target in Europe. Russia has, in recent weeks, touted it as a new class of weapon in the Ukraine war.

Ukraine says it needs 25 Patriot systems, and each missile cost about $6,000,000. Supposedly they have four systems now. (If you are keeping track of the money side of it, those ‘dozens’ of Kinzhals, at $6 mill a pop,  have cost at least $72,000,000 to take out)

Putin said both parties could agree upon a target in Kyiv, where Ukraine could “concentrate all of their air defense and anti-missile defense.”

“We will strike it with Oreshnik and we will see what’s going to happen. We are willing to conduct such an experiment,” he said.

He also suggested that it could benefit the US by allowing the Pentagon to glean information from the strike.

I’m not a duck-hunter (Army slang for air defense) but I’m pretty sure this one is a no-go – we shoot their missile down, they get to see what our stuff can really do. We fail, they get a huge morale boost and confirm that the US is, in some cases, a paper tiger. Oh, and they get a free try at Kyiv.

Meanwhile, Western experts still question how many Oreshnik missiles Russia has in its inventory, and the US calls it an experimental weapon. Moscow’s strike on Dnipro was largely seen as a show of force, and the Pentagon has said it may launch a similar strike on Ukraine soon.

On Monday, Putin told state media that serial production of the Oreshnik would begin soon.  Business Insider

Category: Ukraine