This is a first in the history of military nuclear power. On Wednesday, November 21, the Russians fired, in a theater of war, a medium-range ballistic missile (IRBM) designed in principle exclusively to carry a nuclear warhead. A new missile called “Orechnik” according to Moscow. Until now this type of weapon had only been tested in trials.
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The Russian missile hit a factory in the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro. According to kyiv, it was fired from the shores of the Caspian Sea, 1,000 kilometers away. It would have caused two injuries. A shot justified, according to the Kremlin, by the fact that Ukraine used several American long-range missiles (ATACMS) to strike an ammunition depot on its territory, a day after Washington gave authorization for this use.
According to the Pentagon, the Russian missile that fell on Dnipro is classified in the category of IRBM with a range of 3,000 km to 5,500 km, rather than in the category of intercontinental missiles (ICBM in the jargon), as may believe the experts initially during the day on Thursday. It was not loaded – hence the absence of an explosion on the ground – but with such a shot, the Russians took a step in the escalation with the Westerners.
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Faced with the significant risks of misunderstanding, therefore of retaliation and nuclear escalation, Russia indicated that it had warned the United States of its launch. “The alert was sent automatically thirty minutes before launch”Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday. “The United States was briefly pre-notified before launch via nuclear risk reduction channels”confirmed to the press, the deputy spokesperson of the Pentagon, Sabrina Singh.
A surprise for Westerners
According to the ABC News television channel, citing an official source, the United States had in recent days informed Ukraine and its allies of the possible use of such a weapon by Russia, in order to help them prepare. . According to this official, Moscow probably only has ” handle “ of these experimental missiles. This source also confirmed that the machine belonged to the category of « MIRV » (pour Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicles), that is to say missiles equipped with several warheads which allow several targets to be reached simultaneously.
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