By MK Bhadrakumar, Indian Punchline, 11/24/24

The Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a statement on Thursday regarding the two attacks by Western long-range weapons on Russian territory on November 19 and 21 and Moscow’s reactive strike on a facility within Ukraine’s defence industrial complex in the city of Dnepropetrovsk with a hitherto unknown non-nuclear hypersonic ballistic missile named Oreshnik.

On Friday, at a meeting in the Kremlin with the military top brass, Putin revisited the topic where he clarified that Oreshnik not really in “experimental” stage, as Pentagon had determined, but its serial production has commenced.

And he added, “Given the particular strength of this weapon, its power, it will be put into service with the Strategic Missile Forces.” He then went on to reveal, “It is also important that along with the Oreshnik system, several similar systems are currently being tested in Russia. Based on the test results, these weapons will also go into production. In other words, we have a whole line of medium- and shorter-range systems.”

Putin reflected on the geopolitical backdrop: “The current military and political situation in the world is largely determined by the results of competition in the creation of new technologies, new weapons systems and economic development.”

Succinctly put, an escalatory move authorised by the US president Joe Biden has boomeranged. Did Biden bite off more than he could chew? This is the first thing.

The US apparently decided that Putin’s “red lines” and Russia’s nuclear deterrence were the stuff of rhetoric. Washington was clueless about the existence of a wonder weapon like the Oreshnik in the Russian armoury. The shock and awe in the western capitals speaks for itself. Biden avoided commenting on the issue when asked by reporters.

The Oreshnik is not an upgrade of old Soviet-era systems but “relies entirely on contemporary cutting-edge innovations,” Putin stressed. Izvestia reported that Oreshnik is a new generation of Russian intermediate-range missiles with a range of 2,500-3,000km and potentially extending to 5,000km, but not intercontinental, equipped with multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles (MIRV) — ie., having separating warheads with individual guidance units. It has a speed between Mach 10 and Mach 11 (exceeding 12,000 kms per hour).

The Russian daily Readovka reported that with an estimated 1,500 kgs of combat payload, lifting to a maximum height of 12 km and moving at a speed of Mach 10, the Oreshnik launched from the Russian base at Kaliningrad would strike Warsaw in 1 minute 21 seconds; Berlin, 2 min 35 sec; Paris, 6 min 52 sec; and London, 6 min 56 sec.

In his statement on Thursday, Putin said, “there are no means of countering such weapons today. Missiles attack targets at a speed of Mach 10, which is 2.5 to 3 kilometres per second. Air defence systems currently available in the world and missile defence systems being created by the Americans in Europe cannot intercept such missiles. It is impossible.”

Indeed, a terrible beauty is born. For, Oreshnik is not just an effective hypersonic weapon and is neither a strategic weapon nor an intercontinental ballistic missile. But its striking power is such that when used en masse and in combination with other long-range precision systems, its effect and power is on par with strategic weapons. Yet, it is not a weapon of mass destruction — rather, it’s a high-precision weapon.

Serial production implies that dozens of Oreshnik are in the process of being deployed, which means that no US / NATO staff group and no Anglo-American target intelligence unit in bunkers in Kiev or Lvov is safe any longer.

Oreshnik is also a signal to the incoming US president Donald Trump who is ad nauseam calling for an immediate end-of-war settlement. Oreshnik, ironically, has been developed only as Moscow’s reaction to the hawkish decision by then US president Trump in 2019 to unilaterally withdraw from the 1987 Soviet-American treaty on intermediate range nuclear forces (INF). Hence this also signals that Moscow’s trust in Trump is near zero.

To drive home this point, on the very same day Oreshnik emerged out of its silo, Tass carried an unusual interview with a top Russian think tanker affiliated to the foreign ministry and Kremlin — Andrey Sushentsov, program director of the Valdai Discussion Club, dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s MGIMO International Relations Department, and member of the Scientific Council under the Russian Security Council.

The following excerpts of the interview, plain-speaking and startling, should scatter the hypothesis that there is something special going on between Trump and Putin:

“Trump is considering ending the Ukrainian crisis, not out of any sympathy for Russia, but because he acknowledges that Ukraine has no realistic chance of winning. His goal is to preserve Ukraine as a tool for US interests, focusing on freezing the conflict rather than resolving it. Consequently, under Trump, the long-term strategy of countering Russia will persist. The US continues to benefit from the Ukrainian crisis, regardless of which administration is in power.”

“The United States has regained its position as the European Union’s top trading partner for the first time in years. It is the Europeans who are bearing the financial burden of prolonging the Ukrainian crisis, while the US has no interest in resolving it. Instead, it is more beneficial for them to freeze the conflict, keeping Ukraine as a tool to weaken Russia and as a persistent hotspot in Europe to maintain their confrontational approach.”

“Trump has made numerous statements that differ from the policies of Joe Biden’s administration. However, the US state system is an inertial structure that resists decisions it deems contrary to American interests, so not all of Trump’s ideas will come to fruition.”

“Trump will have a two-year window before the midterm congressional elections, during which he will have a certain freedom to push his policies through the Senate and the House of Representatives. After that, his decisions could face resistance both domestically and from US allies.”

Make no mistake, Russia is under no illusions. Putin will not waver from the conditions he outlined in June for resolving the conflict: the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from Donbass and Novorossiya; Kiev’s commitment to abstain from joining NATO; the lifting of all Western sanctions against Russia; and the establishment of a non-aligned, nuclear-free Ukraine.

Clearly, this war will continue on its course till it reaches its only logical conclusion, which is Russian victory. Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev is spot on when he said in an interview with Al Arabiya yesterday that the use of Oreshnik missile “changes the course” of the Ukrainian conflict.

The Western capitals will have to reconcile with the reality that the scope for escalation of the war is ending. Make no mistake, if another ATAMCS strike inside Russia is attempted, it will have devastating consequences for the West.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic put it nicely: “If you [NATO] think you can attack everything on Russian territory with Western logistics and weapons without getting a response, and that Putin won’t use whatever weapons he deems necessary, then you either don’t know him or you’re abnormal.”