Vladimir Putin has stated Russia will begin mass-producing a brand new hypersonic, non-nuclear ballistic missile it fired at Ukraine on Thursday.
In a televised handle final night time, President Putin stated the intermediate-range missile, which he known as Oreshnik, the Russian phrase for hazel tree, had been utilized in a strike on the Ukrainian metropolis of Dnipro in response to US and UK weapons being utilized by Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia.
Mr Putin, whose land, air and sea invasion of its smaller neighbour reaches the three-year mark in February, boasted concerning the missiles, saying “no one in the world has such weapons”.
He stated Moscow would begin producing them on a mass scale, whereas acknowledging different international locations might pay money for them “sooner or later”.
What can we find out about Putin’s new weapon?
Intermediate missiles have a spread of three,000-5,500 km (1,860-3,415 miles), which might allow them to strike wherever in Europe or the US from Russia.
Whereas the missile which hit Ukraine on Thursday did not have a nuclear warhead, Mr Putin stated it’s so highly effective that utilizing a number of fitted with standard warheads in a single assault might be as devastating as a strike with nuclear weapons.
Detailing the missile’s alleged capabilities throughout a earlier handle on Thursday, Mr Putin claimed air defences would not be capable of destroy it because it travels 10 instances the pace of sound (Mach 10).
In line with Ukrainian army officers, the missile which hit Dnipro had reached a pace of Mach 11 and carried six non-nuclear warheads, every releasing six submunitions.
Mach is a measurement of supersonic pace. Mach 11 equals about 13,600 kph.
Bell stated the Oreshnik has six to eight separate warheads and every of these may be individually programmed, which means they will strike totally different targets directly.
Usually, he stated, the missile could be designed for nuclear weapons, however it could actually carry standard ones too.
Whereas noting how their pace makes them onerous to be intercepted, Bell pointed to how Mr Putin’s declare that no system can shoot them down was additionally made in relation to previously-used Mach 8 missiles – which he says the West has been taking pictures down repeatedly.
“It’s difficult to shoot them down when they’re in space, but they inevitably slow down a lot as soon as they hit the Earth’s atmosphere and that’s when they become more vulnerable,” he stated.
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Navy analyst Sean Bell explains.
Bell defined how air density slows missiles down, growing their possibilities of being intercepted.
The best way intercontinental missiles work is by “going ballistic” and “into space” to allow them to journey sooner.
“You just spend longer in space, so it just makes them really difficult to shoot down,” he stated.
