In response to the US and UK giving a greenlight to Kyiv to strike Russia with advanced Western weapons, Russia on Thursday fired a hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro. Here is all you need to know.
As their name suggests, ballistic missiles use projectile motion to deliver warheads on a target. They are powered for a relatively brief time, after which the let the laws of physics take them to their target. These milles are categorised based on range (See Table).
But this categorisation is not set in stone. For instance, in practice there is very little difference between a high-performing IRBM and a low-performing ICBM, with the former capable of going further than the latter with a lighter load.
The Ukraine Air Force initially claimed that Russia fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), nuclear-capable missiles with longer ranges than IRBMs. This claim was quickly disproven, and not just in Russia President Vladimir Putin’s televised address on Thursday.
“I can confirm that Russia did launch an experimental intermediate range ballistic missile,” Sabrina Singh, the deputy Pentagon press secretary, said in a media briefing. Nonetheless, “this was a new type of lethal capability that was deployed on the battlefield,” she added.
According to the US Department of Defence analysis, the experimental IRBM was based on Russia’s RS-26 Rubezh ICBM model, and Russia likely possesses only a handful of these missiles at present. Putin referred to the missile as ‘Oreshnik’ (the hazel).
The missile fired by Moscow, according to Western sources, boasts a range of as much as 5,500 km, enough to effectively target every European city from Russian territory.
An escalation or a response?
Fabian Hoffmann, a doctoral research fellow at Oslo University who specialises in missile technology and nuclear strategy, told Reuters that the most significant aspect of the weapon was that it carried a MIRV (multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle) payload. “This payload is exclusively associated with nuclear-capable missiles,” he said.
This is what has rattled Ukraine, despite an IRBM being less threatening than an ICBM. This is the first time Moscow has deployed nuclear-capable weapons in the Ukraine war.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russia’s decision to fire the missile was “yet more proof that Russia has no interest in peace. The world must respond… A lack of tough reactions to Russia’s actions sends a message that such behavior is acceptable.” The US too said that Russia deploying a new experimental missile was a matter of “concern”.
But from the perspective of Russia, this follows an escalation from Ukraine and its allies over the past week. After receiving approval from the US and the UK, Kyiv struck Russia with six US-made ATACMS, a tactical missile system, on Monday followed by British Storm Shadow cruise missiles and American HIMARS, an artillery rocket system, on Thursday.
In his television address, Putin said that the IRBM’s deployment “was a response to US plans to produce and deploy intermediate and short-range missiles”, and that Russia would “respond decisively and symmetrically” in the event of an escalation. Previously, its western allies had barred Ukraine from striking Russian territory with advanced West-produced weapons.
An important development
Nonetheless, the latest round of escalations mark a major development in the conflict. With Donald Trump soon to take over in Washington DC — all indications suggest that he will be far less supportive of Kyiv than his predecessor — both sides are jockeying hard for advantage ahead of the seemingly impending negotiations in the near future. This means that the next weeks and months might see many such escalations, with potentially devastating consequences.
Beyond the conflict itself, Russia deploying IRBMs might also impact NATO’s strategic calculus in Europe. Timothy Wright, at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told The Guardian that Russia’s development of new missiles might influence decisions in NATO countries regarding what air defence systems to purchase as well as which offensive capabilities to pursue.
This in turn can further tensions between Moscow and the West. A new US ballistic missile defence base in northern Poland, designed to intercept short- to intermediate-range ballistic missiles, has already drawn angry reactions from Russia. Many experts see Moscow’s expedited development of the IRBM it launched on Thursday as a response to this Polish base.
Such escalations thus might even have global impacts. As Putin himself said in his television address on Thursday, what started as a regional conflict “has acquired elements of a global character”.
