Can You Hear Me Now? Putin Uses Nuclear Capable Weapons On Ukraine

According to multiple news sources, Russia struck the Ukrainian city of Dnipro with several different nuclear-capable weapons overnight. All of these weapons in this strike were carrying conventional, not nuclear warheads. Some of them may have been shot down.

None of that is important.

What is important is the message that was sent. Putin chose these particular weapons specifically to emphasize a harsh reality. As easily as the Russians just hit Ukraine with a relative handful of missiles carrying high explosives, they could have struck it with as many nuclear weapons. In that case, Dnipro and quite a bit of the surrounding territory would no longer exist. The Russians could also have struck targets inside NATO countries.

The missiles fired at Ukraine were an RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile, a Kh-47M2 Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missile, and seven Kh-101 cruise missiles.

The RS-26 Rubezh is a ballistic missile designed to carry up to 1,200 kilograms. The missile achieves speeds of Mach 5 or higher, making it extremely difficult to intercept with existing missile defense systems. The weapon has never before been used in combat and was developed relatively recently for the purpose of being able to defeat Western air defenses. It is also reported to be able to carry a hypersonic glide vehicle which would travel at speeds no existing interceptor missiles could match. The RS-26 can deploy four separate independently targetable nuclear warheads each with a destructive power many times that of Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

The Kh-47M2 Kinzhal is a nuclear-capable, Russian air-launched ballistic missile. It also is designed to defeat sophisticated Western air defenses. After launch, it accelerates to Mach 4 (4,900 km/h), and may then reach speeds of up to Mach 10 (12,350 km/hr) as it plummets back to earth.. This speed, in combination with the missile’s erratic flight trajectory and high maneuverability, dramatically complicates interception.

The Kh-101 / Kh-102 is a family of both conventional and nuclear-capable air-launched cruise missiles (ALCM). While it is relatively slow it is designed to penetrate Western defenses by flying so low that it is below enemy radar systems. It can carry a 250 kt nuclear payload. That’s a bomb more than fifteen times as powerful as what we dropped on Japan. The Kh-102 missile can deliver that warhead to a target close to 3000 miles away and put it within 6 meters of the intended target.

Note that not only are all of these weapons capable of carrying nuclear weapons, but they all also in various ways are designed to penetrate significant modern air defense systems. Putin is making clear not only that he can hit Ukraine with nuclear weapons but that he can hit Western Europe and even the United States in the same manner. The audience for this demonstration was not in Kiev. It was in Washington, DC, London and Paris.

"While we're assessing the full facts, it's obvious that such (an) attack would mark yet another clear escalation from the side of Putin," EU foreign affairs spokesman Peter Stano told reporters in response to news of the use of these nuclear-capable weapons by Russia. That was stating the obvious and also obviously the whole point.

Meanwhile, only hours after the Russian attack on Kiev Moscow threatened to strike U.S. air bases in Poland. Moscow said the opening of a new US ballistic missile defense base in Redzikowo near the Baltic coast would 'increase the overall level of nuclear danger'. The facility opened on November 13^th and is part of a broader NATO missile shield called “Aegis Ashore”.

“This is another frankly provocative step in a series of deeply destabilizing actions by the Americans and their allies,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said of the airbase's opening. “(The base) has been added to the list of priority targets for potential destruction which, if necessary, can be executed with a wide range of advanced weapons,'“she added. 

Putin and his key advisors have stated many times that the use of Western-supplied ballistic missiles by Ukraine to hit targets deep in Russia would be regarded as an act of war by NATO. The Russians have also stated clearly that they will respond if necessary to such attacks by using the nuclear weapons at their disposal. The Biden-Harris administration and their war-mongering supporters have ignored those warnings, poured jet fuel on an already very dangerous fire, and taken us to the brink of World War III.

Putin is giving us one last chance to rethink this. He just used nuclear-capable weapons on Ukraine. Next time they may well not be carrying conventional warheads. Can you hear him now?