* Battlefield realities
* Ukraine scores some wins
*Russia introduces new weapons systems
* The West in Panic
*Russia issues military ultimatum to UK & France
* Nuclear war on the table
* Putin goes to China, N Korea & Vietnam
* Rothschild rage & Frustration
Our last update on the Ukraine conflict was in October 2023- more than 6 months ago. Here, we will do an update on events since then till the end of May 2024.
”They (western elites) are used to filling their bellies with human flesh and filling their pockets with money for centuries, but they must realize that the vampire ball is ending.” ~ Vladimir Putin. The war is won but it is not over – nor will it be for some time. The Fat Lady hasn’t sung.
Russia’s objectives are now pretty clear. They include the creation of “Novorossiya”—which will include all of eastern and southern Ukraine including much of the west bank of the Dnieper, as well as Odessa and Transnistria. Right now, the pace of the war is slow – and will remain so. The Russians could arguably end the conflict right now if they really, really wanted to— but they don’t. As time goes on, Ukrainians lose more and more men and equipment – and the US and NATO spend more and more money on support for Ukraine—weakening themselves.
Of course, it is true that American “aid” really goes to aid American defense industries with their evermore complex and expensive projects – in the end impractical in terms of any real war. The latest military aid package for Ukraine is roughly $90 billion, of which $60 billion will be spent on the MIC, lobbyists and congressmen and senators. That cannot continue forever. Right now, Washington is financing its weapons industry by borrowing, using the reserve status of the dollar. If there’s a global economic crisis, most Americans will be in deep trouble. Washington will face a funding crisis. Russia, on the other hand, is well-positioned to withstand a global economic crisis.
While you might assume that most of Russia’s expenditures are going to defense spending -7 % of GDP-, they are not – the money is mostly being spent on social improvements – infrastructure, education, healthcare, vocational training– and of course rebuilding its new / old territories in the Ukraine with great improvements. In fact, in the event of a global economic crisis, Russia may actually profit.
People in Western Ukraine can only envy the progress that the Russian Federation is making and the lifestyles they enjoy. America could learn a lot from Russia. But no American university offers a course in common sense. So it is that while Americans talk about high-quality, affordable housing, Russians build it. Russia is rising… Evidence is the speed with which Russian “Occupied Ukraine” is recovering.
When was the last time, your government did anything useful for you?
For the US, might makes right – and since 1945 the Russians have always been under threat since the Americans, like the British and the Germans before them, don’t quite see the Russians as human. Putin calls Russophobia racism and he’s right.
1. Battlefield Realities
The battle of Bakhmut was a major battle between the Russia and Ukraine for control of the city.
While the shelling of Bakhmut began in May 2022, and the battle being considered to have begun in early July with Russian offensives on the distant approaches to the city, the main assault towards the city itself started on 1 August. The main assault force consisted primarily of mercenaries from the Russian paramilitary organization supported by regular Russian troops and elements.
In late 2022, following Ukraine’s and counteroffensives, the Bakhmut– front became an important focus of the war, being one of the few front lines where Russia remained on the offensive. Attacks on the city intensified in November 2022, as assaulting Russian forces were reinforced by units redeployed from other front lines.
On 20 May 2023, Bakhmut had been mostly captured by Russian forces. Although, initially a target with lesser tactical importance, Bakhmut became one of the central battles of the war, gaining significant symbolic importance for both sides. The battle of Bakhmut has been described as a “meat grinder” and a “vortex” for both the Ukrainian and Russian militaries. The intensity of the battle and the high number of casualties suffered by both sides during the fight, alongside the trench and urban warfare, has drawn comparisons to the battles in World War II. It has been called the most prominent urban battle of the war, with it being reported as the site of “some of the fiercest urban combat in Europe since World War II. By the end of 2023, Ukraine had gone through three armies. Starting in January, 2024, Ukraine began building up the 4th army. But the quality of these new recruits is pathetic.
The battle of Avdiivka was a major battle for control of the city. After more than a year and a half of intermittent fighting along the city’s outskirts, Russian forces launched an offensive to capture Avdiivka on 10 October 2023, resulting in what was considered one of the bloodiest and fiercest battles of the war. Avdiivka was one of the most fortified settlements in Ukraine and had been described as a “gateway” to the nearby provincial capital. Ukraine’s control of Avdiivka had prevented Russian forces from using Donetsk and its resources as a communications hub and prevented Russian breakthroughs on this axis. The capture of Avdiivka was Russia’s largest territorial advance since the conflict began. The battle for Avdiivka came to be known as the “second Bakhmut”, or “Bakhmut 2.0”, due to the similarities in battlefield conditions, Russian tactics, and reported casualty rates. It has been noted that Russian forces have lost more soldiers during the battle than during the entirety of the conflict.
Since January this year, Ukraine has been attacking Russian forces along various areas of the front. Most of these were repelled, with huge losses in manpower and equipment. Right now, the Russians are focused, on towns and villages that are also railway and road hubs— infrastructure that they need – intact. For the Ukrainians to use a web of villages as fortresses and bases, they need to be able to supply them. The viability therefore lies in logistics. Which are important to the Russians too since if they control those connecting railways and roads they can use them for the rapid transport of all kinds of men and materiel. For example, the value of Bakhmut increases immensely if the Russians can control the railway hub at Chasov Yar and similar infrastructure in nearby towns.
In a few months, expect the Russians to expand their zone of control northwards in both the West and the South. With full control of the road and railway network they will be in a better position to mount operations into Western Ukraine.
Currently, Russia is advancing daily. Their line of advance is towards the Kharkov, Sumy and other areas in the north. Putin’s aim is to completely control all of the four annexed regions, and destroy any Ukrainian and NATO forces and equipment in these 4 provinces – Donesk, Lughansk, Kherson and Zaparozia. The Russians have made a point of neutralizing Ukrainian air defense systems all over the Ukraine. Currently, they are able to use heavy bombers, with FAB bombs of all kinds, including ones bigger than FAB 1500s –as well as their missile systems. Right now, the Russians are taking their time in the Donbas, taking one village at a time, and testing new weapons such as 1500, going all the way up to FAB-3000.
This bomb is typical of Russian military pragmatism. Russia had lots of old Soviet bombs of different sizes. Dumb bombs. up 9000 kg! So, why not make them Smart? Add wings. And a simple, if not rudimentary guidance and targeting systems. The Russians have to be careful with these bombs to avoid the kind of indiscriminate destruction for which the Americans are famous. There is a moral issue— but it’s also pragmatic.
Reportedly the Russian army is now stronger than it was before the Ukraine war. It is also far more experienced, and the Russians have excelled in Electronic Warfare (EW) such as jamming and spoofing. Furthermore, reports continue to stream out about just how badly Western tech has been degraded by Russia’s progressively improving EW capabilities.
NATO is starting to deploy combat troops to Ukraine. Soldiers from Poland, France, the UK, and other NATO members are arriving in larger numbers. Although mercenaries in Ukraine, these newly arriving troops are not mercenaries. They are in uniform, home country proclaimed via insignia. They mostly are concentrated in the western part of the country, although in some cases they are close to the actual fighting in the east. There already are reports that some brigades in the Ukrainian armed forces refused orders from their commanders.
The Russians know what is going on and they are while also grinding down Ukrainian fighting units, inflicting heavy casualties. The Russians say Ukraine has already lost almost 600,000 troops in the war, and the numbers destroyed in combat grow on a daily basis. Currently, Ukraine is losing an average of 2,000 soldiers per day. Based on records released by the Russian MOD states that Ukraine is losing more than 25,000 soldiers a month; this doesn’t include the wounded. In May alone, Ukraine has lost 30,000 soldiers. Ukraine is desperate to find new recruits, and it is getting some help from countries where Ukrainian draft-age refugees are hiding out.
NATO’s plan to try and ward off disaster seems to be to fill in gaps in Ukraine’s forces by importing “advisers,” waiting for the US to commit its army to the battle after the election in November. The Russians know this and are in a race to try and collapse Ukraine’s army before Biden returns to office, if in fact he does. If the Russians are successful, a bigger war in Europe will be avoided. If not, with the introduction of US forces, Europe will be plunged into World War III.
Don’t expect the Russians to end the war anytime soon though. That would take the pressure off NATO, Europe, and the US —and Russia needs to keep the pressure on until the Empire destroys itself and the world is free of the two criminal networks of power- London and New York.
2. Ukraine Scores Some Wins
A Russian Il-76 transport aircraft carrying 74 people killing everyone on board, including 65 Ukrainian POWs according to Russian officials. This plane was on the way to conduct an exchange of POW’s, when it was shot down by the Ukrainians! They killed their own soldiers, deliberately. The Ukrainian military claimed to have shot down a Russian and damaged an over the According to Ukraine, Russia had had only three A-50s and six modernized A-50Us in service.
There have been many attacks on the Black Sea fleet, with Ukraine managing to sink a few Russian ships.
The ATACMS Threat
Ever since Ukraine has received new ATACMs batches, there have been several large-scale strike attempts already recorded, including one in Crimea days ago which had inconclusive results. One report pointed to Russian AD successfully intercepting ATACMs missiles.
One thing is clear: no country on earth currently possesses the proven repeatable capability to entirely stop ballistic missiles. Neither Russia, nor U.S. or Israel. Ballistic missiles, even non-hypersonic ones like the ATACMS, are proving to be an overmatch to all currently fielded anti-air systems. However, expect Russian capability to improve as they profile the ATACMS through more engagements then update their systems. Two “launchers” destroyed out of dozens of engagements where dozens of missiles were potentially shot down is still a respectable tradeoff.
Since the Russian AD has proven to shoot down the majority of them; Ukraine does not stand a chance to get enough of the missiles past the AD net to critically wound the Kerch Bridge. If Russia is shooting down 70-90% of the ATACMS in each batch, that means Ukraine may only get a few to hit, which is simply not enough to do anything other than cosmetic damage.
Ukraine is at a crossroads and a potential breaking point. The political situation has hit rock bottom, with Zelensky’s authority and legitimacy quickly unspooling; the manpower issue is reportedly very bad and is not being addressed by the newly announced mobilization; and on top of all that, Russia appears on the brink of opening up another in a series of new fronts that could bring the AFU to the brink by stretching the lines like never before. Here’s where the ominous signs begin.
There are increasing signals that the covert plan from the globalist controllers is to get Ukraine to leave Russia with no choice but to escalate drastically and bring NATO in some form, whether limited or not, into the fight. As quick reminder, Russian General Evgeny Buzhinky stated the following a month or so ago: “I do not have firm information about how the Russian president and Russian military command will act, but I am sure that if the strikes of Taurus or ATACMS are very harmful for Russia, then I presume we will at least strike the logistical hub in the territory of Poland in Rzeszów. In this case, it will be up to the United States to decide what to do. Either to go to the Third World War with mutual destruction or leave the Poles to fight Russia alone”.
Russia has clearly read the tea leaves and signaled in kind, as the defense ministry announced they would be conducting an unprecedented series of tactical nuclear exercises. This would revolve around fine-tuning the launch of tactical combat nukes, rather than strategic ones that fly across the ocean. The message here is simple and clear: Russia is issuing the response that if things continue escalating in the current dangerous direction then Russia may have no choice but to bring much more devastating weaponry to bear.
But why should Russia suddenly worry about this? Ukraine has been attempting to strike Russian targets for a while now without much success. Well, because now Ukraine is having serious success. Russian S-400’s troubles against the ATACMS missile: the problems have gotten much worse for Russia. S-400s are now being regularly taken out to pasture by the barely stoppable ATACMS. Three S-400 air defense systems, one S-300 air defense system, and several radars were lost. Also, more than 20 pieces of equipment that were being prepared to be sent to the SVO zone were damaged or completely lost.
But the mother of all provocations is that Ukraine has now attacked and damaged strategic Russian early warning nuclear ICBM long range detection radar in Voronezh: Apparently Ukraine has attacked a Russian ballistic missile early warning radar in Armavir, Russia.
“The enemy is slowly disabling the components of our main argument – the components of the nuclear shield. Attacks strategic nuclear weapons carrier bases and nuclear attack warning elements. As soon as the enemy realizes that the damage is critical and we cannot respond with unacceptable damage, he will immediately strike with everything he has.” That’s exactly what NATO would do. This has the potential to cripple Russia’s ability to respond to nuclear threats, and effectively trigger Russia’s nuclear response doctrine.
More and more European officials and NATO countries are on board with allowing Ukraine to use Western-supplied weapons to strike deep inside Russian territory.
Ukraine Turns To Terrorism
When it became evident that Ukraine’s conventional military efforts were a flop, a number of hawks in the US and Europe quickly swung to singing the praises of asymmetric warfare — on Russia and its civilian population, itself.
This asymmetry began slowly: a few random drone attacks that did little damage. This then accelerated to missiles fired into the centres of Belgorod killing civilians; then it became an attack on a Russian transport Ilyushin plane transporting prisoners; and then moved to drone attacks on Russian refineries and naval drone war on Crimea. The process accelerated. And on the eve of last week’s Russian elections, there was the attempt by purported dissidents to disrupt the elections by invading Russia in order to seize small towns and Russian civilians to hold as hostages. (It failed; Russia had prior knowledge of the plan).
In late February, British Intelligence – M16, began sending terrorist groups into Russia to conduct sabotage and various other attacks. Putin ordered the FSB to hunt down and “punish” Russians serving in the Ukrainian military and compared them to those who had collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II.
The Crocus Concert Hall Atrocity
The attack on this place was ordered by British Intelligence, and resulted in the killing around 150 people. Russia claimed that the attackers were caught while trying to flee to the border with Ukraine, where they had contacts. This is the timeline of events leading to the attack.
January 31: Victoria Nuland travels to Kiev and meets Ukraine’s intelligence chief, Budanov. Then, in a dodgy press conference at night in the middle of an empty street, she promises “nasty surprises” to Putin: code for asymmetric war.
February 22: Nuland shows up at a Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) event and doubles down on the “nasty surprises” and asymmetric war. That may be interpreted as the definitive signal for Budanov to start deploying dirty ops.
February 25: The New York Times publishes a story about CIA cells in Ukraine: nothing that Russian Intel does not already know.
Then, a lull until March 5 – when crucial shadow play may have been in effect. Nuland was a key dirty ops plotter alongside the CIA and the Ukrainian GUR (Budanov). It seems that the CIA did not want a terror attack on Moscow, as this act had the great possibility of unleashing Putin’s wrath on the West.
The CIA got hold of it and maneuvered to “terminate” her one way or another – because Russian Intel would have inevitably connected the dots. Yet Nuland, in fact, is not “retired” yet; she’s still presented as Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs and showed up recently in Rome for a G7-related meeting, although her new job, in theory, seems to be at Columbia University (a Hillary Clinton maneuver). Meanwhile, the assets for a major “nasty surprise” are already in place, in the dark, and totally off radar. The op cannot be called off.
March 5: Little Blinken formally announces Nuland’s “retirement”. She got fired!!
March 7: At least one Tajik among the four-member terror commando visits the Crocus venue and has his photo taken.
March 7-8 at night: U.S. and British embassies simultaneously announce a possible terror attack on Moscow, telling their nationals to avoid “concerts” and gatherings within the next two days.
March 9: Massively popular Russian patriotic singer Shaman performs at Crocus. That may have been the carefully chosen occasion targeted for the “nasty surprise” – as it falls only a few days before the presidential elections, from March 15 to 17. But security at Crocus was massive, so the op is postponed.
March 22: The Crocus City Hall terror attack.
The details of the arrested perpetrators of the Crocus Concert Hall massacre and their mode of operation does not comport with the notion of their being ideological supporters of ISIS.
Why is it that the EU and the US are so adamant about who is behind the Crocus Concert Hall atrocity, that they will not wait out the investigation? Within 55 minutes of the attack, the US spokesperson said ‘Ukraine wasn’t involved’. Now the US is saying – definitively – that only ISIS was involved.
“No concrete advance warning – nothing was transferred to us”, Russia’s Washington Ambassador insists.
Why are Western states so certain? It is most unusual for Intelligence services to pronounce within the hour. Though the actual perpetrators are now known, the key question remains: Who stands behind the attack? Things are not always as they seem. ISIS-K has been operating for some years, more as a ‘rat-run’ extending from Turkey to Syria; to Afghanistan and Iran. It is a franchise on behalf of which terrorist acts are committed, funds raised, and resources prepared. ISIS-K, which originated amongst Tajik dissidents in northern Afghanistan, unites certain groups and conducts active operations largely against the Taliban movement. It provides an umbrella for terrorist actions too in northern Iran. It has had no particular interest in Russia.
There are many other inconsistencies to the ISIS claim. The Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov insists that though Russia knows who carried out the attack, it is too early to speculate on ‘who gave the ultimate order’ (President Putin’s, as yet, unanswered question). This is as explosive as it gets. Intel sources in Moscow discreetly confirm this is one of the FSB’s prime lines of investigation. This op was the brain child of M16, along with their neocon/ziocon allies in Washington.
ISIS-K: The Ultimate Can of Worms
The Budanov connection is betrayed by the modus operandi – similar to previous Ukraine Intel terror attacks against Russian citizens – close reconnaissance for days, even weeks, the hit, and then a dash for the border. And that brings us to the Tajik connection.
And that leads us to the massive can of worms to end them all: ISIS-K. The alleged emir of ISIS-K, since 2020, is an Afghan Tajik, Sanaullah Ghafari. He was not killed in Afghanistan in June 2023, as the Americans were spinning: he may be currently holed up in Baluchistan in Pakistan. Yet the real person of interest here is not Tajik Ghafari but Chechen Abdul Hakim al-Shishani, the former leader of the jihadi outfit Ajnad al-Kavkaz (“Soldiers of the Caucasus”), who was fighting against the government in Damascus in Idlib and then escaped to Ukraine because of a crackdown by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – in another one of those classic inter-jihadi squabbles. Shishani was spotted on the border near Belgorod during the recent attack concocted by Ukrainian Intel inside Russia. Call it another vector of the “nasty surprises”. Shishani had been in Ukraine for over two years and has acquired citizenship. He is in fact the sterling connection between the nasty motley cruel Idlib gangs in Syria and GUR in Kiev – as his Chechens worked closely with Jabhat al-Nusra, which was virtually indistinguishable from ISIS. Shishani, fiercely anti-Assad, anti-Putin and anti-Kadyrov, is the classic “moderate rebel” advertised for years as a “freedom fighter” by the CIA and the Pentagon.
But, the bulk of ISIS-K’s members have come from the Pro-US Afghan regime that melted away and “disappeared” when the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021. The CIA brought them into ISIS-K. Many of these have been used to conduct terror attacks within Afghanistan, and against the Taliban. Over the course over the next 2 years, the Taliban managed to eliminate most of the ISIS-K cells operating in Afghanistan.
The Ukrainian Love Affair with Terror Gangs
Ukrainian Intel, SBU and GUR, have been using the “Islamic” terror galaxy as they please since the first Chechnya war in the mid-1990s. Milley and Nuland of course knew it, as there were serious rifts in the past, for instance, between GUR and the CIA.
The FSB investigation is establishing a trail: Crocus was planned by pros – and certainly not by a bunch of low-IQ Tajik dregs. Not by ISIS-K, but by GUR and M16. A classic false flag, with the clueless Tajiks under the impression that they were working for ISIS-K.
As for ISIS, everyone seriously following the Middle East knows that’s a gigantic diversionist scam, complete with the Americans transferring ISIS operatives from the Al-Tanf base to the eastern Euphrates, and then to Afghanistan after the Hegemon’s humiliating “withdrawal”. Project ISIS-K actually started in 2021, after it became pointless to use ISIS goons imported from Syria to block the relentless progress of the Taliban. But even with plausible deniability, the Crocus investigation seems to be leading exactly to where Moscow wants it: uncovering the crucial middleman. And everything seems to be pointing to Budanov and his goons. And, behind Budanov stands British Intelligence. Ramzan Kadyrov dropped an extra clue. He said the Crocus “curators” chose on purpose to instrumentalize elements of an ethnic minority – Tajiks – who barely speak Russian to open up new wounds in a multinational nation where dozens of ethnicities live side by side for centuries. In the end, it didn’t work. The Russian population has handed to the Kremlin total carte blanche to exercise brutal, maximum punishment – whatever and wherever it takes.
Ukraine Targets Russian Refineries
Putin is now treating Ukraine missile-strikes on Russian territory as a declaration of war. Which they are!
London pushed Budano to damage Russian refineries. Since February, many attacks took place, resulting in reducing Russia’s refining capacity be 12-14 %. Although most of these will be repaired with 2-3 months, it hasn’t impacted Russia’s refining capacity. In response, Russia began targeting Ukraine’s electrical production. Many power plants were completely destroyed. The result is that 90% of Ukraine”s electricity production has been destroyed. Ukraine will be cut off all power as the electricity and distribution stations will be constantly hit.
According to former minister of infrastructure Aleksey Kucherenko: The situation is not expected to improve dramatically, as the damaged infrastructure cannot be restored quickly, the Member of Parliament warned during an interview with the YouTube channel Vishka.“We have lost around eight thousand megawatts of electricity, that’s a lot, out of eight thousand, 800 are currently working,” he said, citing power engineers, and warning of extensive power outages through the summer and winter.
In April, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia’s strikes on energy facilities “directly affect the defense industry of Ukraine,” calling them part of “demilitarization” efforts. Moscow reiterated the attacks are only aimed at Ukrainian military targets and facilities that support their operations, and never at the civilian population.
To alleviate the pressure on the power grid, Ukraine has introduced temporary blackouts for industrial and household consumers in all regions. The nation has also ramped up imports of electricity from neighboring EU countries – Romania, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary – and also from Moldova.
Earlier this month, Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko claimed that the combined financial losses from Russian attacks amounted to more than $1 billion, and warned that the figure is likely to rise. He noted that the main damage was to thermal and hydro generation, as well as power transmission systems.
Over the past week, Russia began destroying the water purification and pumping stations, as well as the sewage systems. After Russia destroyed the EU”s 2nd largest gas distribution hub in Western Ukraine, Ukraine and the EU will be deprived of its gas trump card. Most likely, Ukraine’s gas distribution system will somehow be disabled. The infrastructure of railways and bridges will be more severely destroyed. Perhaps the bridges will be hit with something very large and powerful, in order to immediately “topple” them with one blow.
Simultaneously, Russia has been targeting ports and warehouses containing sea drones, and they will start hitting the ports hard again. In addition, many factories and plants producing and repairing military hardware has been destroyed, and many more will be hit in the future, as they re-start production.
Then we have foreign troop concentrations and meetings of senior NATO officers along with their Ukrainian counterparts that keep on getting wiped out from hypersonic missiles.
Overall: life in Ukraine will become even worse and more difficult for the population. The Ukrainian authorities know this, but they carry out the instructions of those who pay for this “de-population” of a Slav race. Take care of yourself! For the British, French and Americans, you are just a tool to be used and discarded.
Then, last week, the Russian government said it was in a “state of war” in Ukraine, the first time since the invasion that it had used the term. Previously it called its war against Ukraine a SMO.
3. Russia Introduces New Weapons Systems
Russia has and is introducing new weapons systems across the board, from fighter jets to bombers, from missiles to rockets, from APCs to tanks, from ships to submarines, and MLRS’s, including the introduction of the S-500- the world’s most advanced air defense system. Drone production is skyrocketing. Drone technology is improving at a quantum rate. So, the Russians now are also building a new 21st Century military taking advantage of the SMO is a test ground.
Western militaries are trained for lightning wars using the most advanced technologies available. Inevitably, however, military training in the West looks back to World War II or even earlier. And the West mostly loses. Putin so far mostly wins. He studied judo and combat Sambo, which is in many ways like the jujitsu from which judo evolved. In the martial arts adaptability is the key to victory. So too, on the battlefield, advanced air defense systems, drones, electronic warfare devices and other innovations have revolutionized warfare. Artillery still rules. But tank to tank warfare is an anachronism. Air supremacy is limited by air defense systems.
The Russians learn from their mistakes. NATO does not. Maybe that’s because their entire war is a mistake? And the system behind it is a mistake too.
NATO has one rule – when shit hits the fan— blame the fan. The Russians follow KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid. The Russians do not throw away money in the defense sector like Americans do – but that’s because defense contractors work for the government in Russia not the other way around as in the US. In other words, use whatever works and upgrade it. Don’t waste money – don’t waste lives.
Russia’s New Missile Systems
In his address to the Federal Assembly in March 2018, Russian President Putin revealed the existence of five major nuclear-capable weapons programs. Dubbed Putin’s superoruzhie (‘super weapons’), these new systems signalled Russia’s determination to produce innovative solutions to emerging military threats, principally those emanating from the US. Four of the systems unveiled by Putin can be described as strategic in so far as they are all long-range weapons (i.e. possessing a range greater than 5,000 km). Only one of the ‘super weapons’ – the Kinzhal – is a sub-strategic system (i.e. with a range of less than 5,000 km). However, at around the same time as Putin’s announcement, more details emerged of another novel sub-strategic system, the Zircon hypersonic ship-launched missile.
The development of novel strategic systems is seen as vital to ensuring Russia’s ability to penetrate current and future US missile defense systems (as well as those of other potential adversaries) and to guarantee a second-strike capability for the foreseeable future. The purpose of the four main strategic systems is perhaps easiest to divine. Maintaining strategic nuclear forces that can deliver assured retaliation – that would cause unacceptable damage to any adversary – is of paramount importance to policymakers in Moscow.
As a result, considerable effort has been made in modernizing Russia’s strategic nuclear delivery systems over the past decade. The need to upgrade Russia’s strategic arsenal – both now and in the future – is motivated by two fears. First, that Russia’s Soviet-era weapons might not be able to guarantee penetration of emerging US missile defence systems that were, according to Putin, designed ‘primarily for countering strategic arms that follow ballistic trajectories’. Second, US efforts to develop long-range precision conventional weapons, such as the Prompt Global Strike program, generated growing concern in Moscow over the survivability of Russia’s strategic arsenal.
The Zircon
Imagine a missile so fast it practically becomes invisible to radar – a missile that can change the course of a war in seconds. This is the Zircon, the Russian hypersonic missile causing concern around the world. But why is NATO so alarmed by it? And how could it impact the war in Ukraine? It reaches speeds of up to Mach 9, making it an almost impossible target to intercept. This weapon is seen as a significant threat to Europe’s security and how Russia is using the Zircon as a tool of intimidation in the conflict with Ukraine.
Even if a U.S. ship were to detect a Zircon missile from 100 miles away, it would have only one minute to do something about it. In order to intercept a Russian Zircon missile, the U.S. would either need to intercept it at launch or fly an object into its path.
Russia’s shift to hypersonic weapons is likely a means of contending with American superiority in size, technology and sheer number of aircraft carriers. The US intends to maintain a force of 12 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, of which only two are not in the port, undergoing maintenance.
By contrast, Russia has one — and it deploys with a tugboat in case its engine breaks down. While at sea, any of Russia’s 15 Buyan–class corvettes will be able to carry up to 25 Zircon hypersonic missiles. It would take less than a half-dozen of those missiles to sink even the most advanced American aircraft carrier, such as the USS Gerald R. Ford.
S-500
The S-500 is designed for intercepting and destroying as well as cruise missiles and aircraft. With a planned range of 600 km (370 mi) for anti-ballistic missile (ABM) and 500 km (310 mi) for air defense, the S-500 was envisaged to be able to detect and simultaneously engage up to 10 ballistic hypersonic targets flying at up to a maximum of 7 km/s The altitude of a target engaged is claimed to be 180 kms. Other targets it has been announced to defend against include satellites, space weapons launched from hypersonic aircraft, and hypersonic orbital platforms. It is to have a response time of less than 4 seconds (compared to the S-400’s of less than 10).
In summer 2020 the commander of the Aerospace Forces, seemed to confirm that the S-500 system can be used to kill satellites. Russia has just deployed the first two S-500’s alongside the planned S-550 missile as part of its air defense network.
In 2022, some two months after Russian troops invaded Ukraine, Putin said the Sarmat would “reliably ensure the security of Russia from external threats and make those, who in the heat of aggressive rhetoric “In our advanced developments, we are definitely the leaders,” he said.
AVANGARD
Russia has deployed the deadly Avangard missiles in the Orenburg Region in southern Urals. It is one of the six “invincible” weapons unveiled by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2018. The Avangard is a nuclear-capable, hypersonic missile system developed by Russia. The missile can travel at hypersonic speed of Mach 27 (about 32,000 km per hour) while maneuvering and overwhelming any missile defence. It has a range of over 6,000 km and weighs approximately 2,000 kg. The Avangard missile system with a hypersonic unit will effectively complement the weapons systems of the Strategic Missile Forces and expand the combat capabilities of the group of missile forces.
Sarmat
The Sarmat is an underground silo-based missile that Russian officials say can carry up to 15 nuclear warheads.
Known to NATO military allies by the codename “Satan”, the missile reportedly has a short initial launch phase, which gives little time for surveillance systems to track its takeoff. Weighing more than 200 tons, the Sarmat has a range of some 18,000km and was developed to replace Russia’s older generation of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICMBs) that dated from the 1980s.
Russia test-fired the Sarmat missile in April 2022 in the Plesetsk region of the country, located some 800km (almost 500 miles) north of Moscow, and the launched missiles to hit targets on the Kamchatka peninsula, in Russia’s far east. “The Sarmat strategic system has assumed combat alert posture,” the state-run TASS news agency quoted the Roscosmos chief as saying.
“Based on experts’ estimates, the RS-28 Sarmat is capable of delivering a MIRVed warhead weighing up to 10 tons to any location worldwide, both over the North and South Poles,” TASS said in its report.
– One of several advanced weapons in Russia’s arsenal – would be ready for deployment soon.
Kinzhal
Russia sent fighter jets armed with Kinzhal missiles to Syria for the first time in 2021. Russia’s defense ministry claimed to have fired a Kinzhal missile at a munitions dump in southwestern Ukraine on March 19, 2022, the first known use of the weapon in combat. It has since fired Kinzhal missiles on several other occasions in Ukraine.
The Kinzhal, which means “dagger” in Russian. It is an air-launched ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear or conventional warheads. It has a reported range of 1,500 to 2,000 km while carrying a payload of 480 kg. It may reach speeds of up to Mach 10 (12,250 kph). The Kinzhal is one of six “next generation” weapons unveiled by President Vladimir Putin in a speech in March 2018. He has said these weapons could penetrate both existing and any future missile defense systems.
Putin said in December 2021, two months before the invasion of Ukraine, that Russia was the global leader in hypersonic missiles and, by the time other countries caught up, was likely to have developed technology to counteract these new weapons. Hypersonic weapons such as Russia’s 3M22 Zircon fly so fast and low — at speeds of up to Mach 6 and at a low atmospheric-ballistic trajectory — that they can penetrate traditional anti-missile defense systems. And it’s so fast that the air pressure in front of the weapon forms a plasma cloud as it moves, absorbing radio waves and making it practically invisible to active radar systems. US missile interceptor systems require 8-10 seconds of reaction time to intercept incoming attacks. In those 8-10 seconds, the Russian Zircon missiles will already have traveled 20 kilometers, and the interceptor missiles do not fly fast enough to catch up.
Burevestnik
Of the four strategic systems unveiled by Putin in 2018, the least is known about the 9M730 Burevestnik [Petrel] (SSC-X-9 ‘Skyfall’) ground-launched, nuclear-powered cruise missile. When Putin publicly revealed the program in 2018, he stated that the novelty and operational utility of the Burevestnik is in its unlimited (in practical terms) range, which would enable the missile to evade any adversary’s air defence systems. The missile might also be much more difficult to detect, principally because its unlimited range would permit it to fly at low altitudes throughout its journey. By contrast, the range of other, conventionally-powered, cruise missiles – such as those included in both the US-made Tomahawk and Russian-made Kalibr families of missiles, which are powered by turbojets or turbofans – is curtailed, the longer that they fly at low altitudes.
If Russia has successfully developed a nuclear-powered cruise missile, it will be the first of its kind in the world.
The story continues in Part 2 – – –
As an engineer I am always compleley focused on the advancements in materials and weapons science. These fields provide the necessary capabilities to secure a nation from any aggressor and if required, submit any opponent. They are the Gods of War. And War is the Father of all.