Ukrainian president Zelenskyy, a TV comedian until five years ago, had been repeatedly pestering his Western allies to authorize the use of long-range missiles against targets inside Russia, that is, far away from the frontline, maintaining, in his limited military wisdom, that it was the only way to bring about an end to the war. Eventually, on November 18, the outgoing and infamously senile Joe Biden gave in and authorized Ukraine to use long-range American missiles inside Russia.
The very next day on November 19, the 1000th day of the war, Zelenskyy fired six US-made ATACMS missiles into Russia. Next day, they fired Anglo-French Storm Shadow missiles into Russia.
Poor fellow had no idea how mighty Russia would respond. On November 21, Russia shocked the world by firing the biggest missile that has ever been fired in the history of combat.
What Russia did to ATACMS and Storm Shadow Missiles?
ATACMS (MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile System) is not a new missile. It was fielded in 1991 and used in the Gulf War too. It is not a big missile, weighing 1.7 tons and carrying a warhead of 214 kg of explosives to a max range of 300 km.
Storm Shadow is an air-launched cruise missile weighing 1.3 tons, carries a warhead of 450 kg explosives to a range of 550 km because; first, an air-launched cruise missile is not obliged to waste power lifting off against gravity and second; because it flies sub-sonic.
The missiles by themselves are not significant. What is significant is that Zelenskyy wanted to take the fight beyond the frontline. The American missiles were previously restricted for use within Ukraine. Hitherto, strikes inside Russia were by drones, with much smaller explosive payloads.
Russia shot down five of the six ATACMS missiles fired at an arms depot in the Bryansk region, 110 km inside Russia. Debris of one hit the facility, starting a fire that was swiftly put out and caused no casualties or damage. They also neutralized two Storm Shadow cruise missiles, six HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket System) rockets, and 67 drones.
Why Biden changed his mind?
Biden’s decision is intriguing, particularly in view of the fact that for the first two years of the war, ATACMS had not even been given to Ukraine. It has been given this April only. Kevin Liptak et al for CNN conjecture that he was alarmed by Russia amassing some 50,000 troops in Kursk besides the 11,000 North Korean troops. Biden was made to believe that Russia was trying to take Kursk off the table as a potential bargaining chip for the Ukrainians in any future peace talks. The idea of these missiles was to help Ukraine hold on to Kursk for as long as possible. It is believed that when Zelenskyy met Biden in September, he gave a detailed list of targets inside Russia that he wanted to hit with American missiles for his ‘victory plan’.
We don’t know what Trump would do of this. Trump has been criticising the scale of US aid to Ukraine and has repeatedly said he will end the war quickly, without explaining how.
Russia first responded with a new Nuclear Doctrine
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the use of ATACMS was a clear signal the West wanted to escalate the conflict. They maintain that such weapons cannot be launched without direct US operational support and their use makes USA a direct combatant in the war, prompting Russian retaliation.
Coinciding with the attack, Putin signed a new nuclear doctrine that is obviously a warning to USA. It lowers the threshold greatly under which Russia might use nuclear weapons to include responding to attacks that threaten its territorial integrity, even in case of non-nuclear attacks. It also threatens non-nuclear powers that allow their land, water or airspace to be used to prepare or conduct aggression against it.
Missile that changed everything
The social media instantly proclaimed that the mysterious missile was a conventionally armed ICBM, projecting it as the first launch of an ICBM ‘in anger’ in the history of the world. Never mind, who the hell would throw a ton of high explosive by an ICBM that costs $70 million to just 740 km when it is designed to go 15,000 km.
From the English transcript of his speech in the French paper Le Monde, Putin himself described the missile as ‘Russia’s latest medium-range missile system called Oreshnik, with a non-nuclear warhead, targeted at missile and other armament production facility in the city of Dnepropetrovsk’. He also used the word hypersonic.
The Psyops masterstroke
It was a brilliant psyops by Putin, simply brilliant. The timing of the entire operation was so sweet; it was like the classic one-two combination in boxing. First the announcement of the new nuclear doctrine, which, in no uncertain terms, proclaimed that Russia had lowered its nuclear threshold and that it would retaliate with nukes in situations that closely resemble the on-going war. And, then they fired the missile.
Imagine the sheer terror in the US defence establishment. Russia notified the NATO through the National Nuclear Risk Reduction Center that it was firing the experimental ballistic missile from Astrakhan, just 30 minutes before the launch. Pentagon confirmed US was warned by Russia about Oreshnik/Hazel test.
What they did not know was the nature of the warhead. Russia was not even expected to tell what the warhead was. The Americans could only track the missile and heave a sigh of relief that it was not coming their way. Who cares if some goddamn town of Ukraine was obliterated in a nuclear blast? The USA would not lose anything. How many Americans know even the names of any town in Ukraine other than Kyiv and Kharkiv?
Simultaneously, Platform X (formerly Twitter) exploded with photographs and videos of the purported attack and ‘ICBM’ started trending heavily. Thousands of posts showed MIRV warheads falling in parallel line with a luminous streak for every warhead stretching from the heavens to the earth. Never mind that MIRV warheads do not fall parallel to each other. You don’t need MIRV for that. Much simpler Multiple Warhead Vehicle (MWV) would do the job. But, the dumb people of the world do not bother about such niceties; they know only how to panic, and they did.
Thousands of videos were posted showing funnel-like expanding flashes of light all over the horizon. This fake was copied from the scenes of the fictional strike by the primary weapon of the alien spaceship in the 1996 film Independence Day and, to the uninitiated, reminded of what a nuclear strike could look like.
Thousands of them posted videos of the missile just after launch with a huge parabolic luminous plume in its wake and called it the first ‘true space weapon’. Never mind that the plume shape was unrealistic, unnaturally large, and remained unrealistically unaffected by atmospheric conditions.
Clearly, all those photographs and videos were faked or AI generated. You can easily guess who had done it. Dumb people can be very easily made to believe in anything, as long as it is sensational.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine furnished any photographs of the damage on the Pivdenmash plant. IRBMs typically carry 700-2500 kg warheads. Besides damage to infrastructure by the sheer kinetic impact of the missile, a ton of explosive must create a crater minimum 50 feet wide and 36 feet deep. Where are the satellite images by the Americans, who claim to see even a damaged battle tank?
In fact, as Ukrainska Pravada reports, Julian Ropcke, senior editor with the German paper Bild has claimed that the missile had no explosive at all. Ropcke says it was a modified version of the RS-26 Rubezh IRBM with decoys. He is categorical, “It was a propaganda and political move, not a military one.” Unless photographs of damage are produced, my scientific reasoning also would agree with him. The missile firing was never intended for destruction anyway.
The word ‘hypersonic’ used by Putin was also a part of the psyops intended to overawe the fools. Hypersonic, by definition, means speed more than Mach 5, that is, 6174 kmph. Ballistic missiles with a range of even a 1000 km attain speeds much more than that. Anyone can calculate that for himself with the basic projectile equation. The word hypersonic is correctly used for hypersonic glide vehicles that are manoeuvrable, unlike ballistic warheads that follow the ballistic (that is, parabolic) trajectory.
The success of the psyops can be gauged from the fact that social media (much of it again a part of the psyops) started narrating the power of the Oreshnik/Hazel missile that it could reach Great Britain in 19 minutes; Poland in 8 minutes; Belgium in 14 minutes; and Germany in 11 minutes. Russia already has the largest inventory of IRBMs and ICBMs in the world, replete with some 600 IRBMs launchers and 570 ICBM launchers. A new IRBM hardly makes a difference to its total power. Yet, they managed to project as if they had just developed a new, terrifying and destabilizing IRBM. That is the beauty of psyops!
From Astrakhan to Dnepropetrovsk, it is just 740 km. Many Third World countries have been capable of firing missiles at this range since decades. But psyops made it look like a great thing. That was the masterstroke, not the missile per se.
How the world freaked out
The former comedian fell into the trap of the psyops hook, line and sinker. Poor fellow had thought that his screaming of an ICBM attack would jolt the half-comatose Biden into ordering the launch of the famous Minuteman III ICBMs and the Trident II SLBMs (submarine launched ballistic missiles) screeching into the Russian landscape. What a simpleton!
But, that’s exactly what you have to expect from a comedian catapulted to heading a nation and fighting a war. Few people now remember that Zelenskyy had produced a TV series that ran from 2015 to 2019. In that series, he played the role of a fictional Ukrainian president. The series was very popular and it came as no surprise when he named the political party he floated after his production company. The election of this undeserving man to the seat of power is a classic example of the intrinsic and fundamental weaknesses of electoral democracy. People are dumb and they elect dumb people like them to lead them to disaster because they identify better with them. Nothing proves it better than Ukraine and Zelenskyy.
When NATO gave permission to use their long-range missiles on Russia, Zelenskyy proclaimed, “Missiles will speak for themselves.” After Russia fired its big missile, this man whimpered, “Putin is using Ukraine as testing ground.” This is what happens when democracy is subverted to give power to undeserving people like comedians. The way this man has allowed his nation to become a puppet in the hands of NATO is suicidal idiocy of the highest order. Whatever is happening to Ukraine is the punishment for the stupidity of the Ukrainians in electing him.
Hats off to Putin– the master strategist
The Serbian President Vucic rightly commented, “If someone thinks they can shoot at anything they want on the territory of the Russian Federation with Western weapons without Putin responding, without him using all types of weapons to defend Russia, you either don’t know him, or you are crazy. There is no third option.”
Putin has not just rattled USA and NATO. He has convincingly demonstrated that he has got balls of steel and, if push comes to shove, he shall not hesitate from firing nuclear-tipped missiles also. By God, given the demonstrated fact that not even an attempt was made to intercept the missile, no threat could be more credible. Those who drool over phony masterstrokes of their leaders should wake up and smell the coffee. This was a real masterstroke. Hats off to Putin, the master strategist!
