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The Russian missile attack on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro Thursday that caused aneurysms among the “World War III is here” crowd when it was initially reported to be a conventionally armed ICBM has been officially identified as a previously unknown intermediate-ranged ballistic missile; see Russia May or May Not Have Launched a Non-Nuclear ICBM at Ukraine.

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Deputy Defense Press Secretary Sabrina Singh, speaking at the daily Pentagon press briefing, identified the missile as ” an experimental intermediate-range ballistic missile” based on an existing ICBM design. She also confirmed that Russia had alerted the Pentagon to the launch in accordance with nuclear risk reduction protocols. The video is cued to the transcript.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=live&/n0e6rHG47IU&feature=shared&t=1210&wmode=opaque&rel=0

Q: Thanks, Sabrina. A couple of questions on the missile strike in Ukraine. First, it was — can you confirm it was an intermediate range missile? Second, did Russia provide advance warning? And can you say — can you give us some sort of clarity on who they called and how much advance notice did they give?

And then just thirdly on this, what is the overall US reaction to the missile strike and Putin’s comments today that he believes Russia has the right to strike any — and take action against countries that provide weapons to Ukraine?

DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY SINGH: Thanks Lita. So, trying to remember some of the order of your questions, so I can confirm that Russia did launch an experimental intermediate range ballistic missile. This IRBM was based on Russia’s RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile model.

In terms of notifications to the United States, the United States was pre-notified briefly before the launch through nuclear risk reduction channels. For more, I’d refer you to State on that.

And I think your third question was on our reaction to Putin’s comments. I mean, you know, we’ve seen this type of, you know, dangerous, reckless rhetoric before from President Putin. What we’re focused on is continuing to support Ukraine with what it needs.

Ukraine, as you know, has been successful in continuing to push back against Russian aggression. We just rolled out another $275 million package yesterday. You’re going to see more packages continue in the — in the weeks and months ahead left of this administration. So, that’s what we’re really focused on.

Of course, we’re going to take seriously the rhetoric coming out of Russia. But our focus remains on arming Ukraine and supporting Ukraine what it needs the most on the battlefield. And as a reminder, as this reckless rhetoric continues, Putin can choose to end this war today. He can choose to withdraw Russian forces and end this — and end, you know, his war of aggression and his war of choice. So, we’re going to continue to focus on what Ukraine needs on the battlefield.

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The Pentagon analysis seems to have been validated by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Main Points

The fact that this was not an ICBM indicates that the strike was not Putin signaling an increase in escalation. Russia has used missiles in the same class since the early days of the war, particularly the Iskander IRBM. Russia has also used nuclear-capable cruise missiles from strategic bombers. This missile is new, but it does not represent a formerly strategic nuclear missile being used. There were salty tears shed by the people who believe that Putin was forced to invade Ukraine as they found they were not closer to a nuke being popped on Ukrainian civilians, but whatever.

Russia’s use of the existing nuclear risk reduction channels to warn the US of the launch indicates that Putin is concerned about how the United States and NATO perceive his actions. There is this mythos on the anti-American right that holds that Putin is some sort of magical potentate who does what he wants without regard to risk, and we just have to deal with it. Obviously, this is not the case. 

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Mystery

Now that we know what the missile was, we still aren’t sure what we saw in the video.

The video shows the same attack twice, probably to make it longer. The first problem is that there are no explosions at impact. A MIRV has a lot of kinetic energy; what is missing from the video is evidence of chemical energy. There seem to be about 17 individual warheads. If we use the Iskander as a proxy, this would reduce the throw-weight of each to about 100 pounds.

Compare this video with that of US MIRV tests at Kwajalein Atoll.

The lack of damage and casualties reported from Dnipro also hints that the warheads were purely kinetic, which begs the question of their guidance system.

I’m sure we’ll learn more about this system as the pieces are analyzed by Western intelligence, but the bottom line is that the missile should not be interpreted as another of Putin’s daily threats to go nuclear.