Oreshnik

When I say capabilities, what it means is that he need not go the nuclear way.

He has non-nuclear capabilities, various type of missiles like Avangard, Zircon, Kinzhal, then Orishnik, Caliber.

These are all various type of missiles.

You know, some are anti-submarine cruise missiles.

Then you have Kinzhal, which is the air launch ballistic missile.

Then you have Orishnik, which is the IRBM.

It can be fired from or it can be dropped from the MiG-31s that they have.

And then they also have the Avangard, which is the hypersonic glide vehicles.

I mean, I don't know what is up with him.

I guess he really has a deep-seated fear of NATO and that whole military apparatus, because he seems very reticent, very reticent to send a strong message to NATO that, hey, okay, I warned you, you continue to cross my red lines, Chew on this and send, you know, an Oreshnik hypersonic missile into London or Berlin or something like that, even on a military site, like a weapons warehouse or something.

It doesn't have to be a civilian thing that he would bomb.

Send a message, though.

I don't think – just make sure my position is clear.

I don't think Putin is crazy enough to fire an Oreshnik at NATO.

I know some people believe that is very possible.

I don't.

If they're inadequate, we're not even present.

If Russia wanted to flood with all these new Garin long-range jet-powered drones and several other kinds of categories in nearly every kind of, whether it's cruise missiles, the hypersonic missiles, the Oreshniks, you name it.

I mean, they could literally flood the skies of Western Europe if we got into a full general war.

And there's nothing we could do to stop it.

feeding battlefield outcomes.

The GUR hacked a Russian research institute responsible for the Yars, Bulova, Iskander-M, and Oreshnik missile programs.

That's the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, the Submarine Launched Missile, the Short Range Ballistic Missile, and the new Intermediate Range System.

Getting inside that institute meant access to production schedules, technical documentation, supply chain data, and testing timelines.

Of course.

I mean, look, what happens if, um, you know, some of the loose talk from Finland's, uh, president, Alexander Stubb, results in, uh, an Oresnik hitting Helsinki? Okay.

How do you control that escalation? Um, it's not like Russia and Finland haven't gone to war before.

It's not like the history of who Finland fought alongside in World War II is forgotten by the Russians.

He said Belarus had permitted the deployment of Russian radio signal repeaters that are being used to guide Shahed attack UAVs toward Ukrainian targets.

And in the same interview, he discussed, uh, deployment of the Russian Oreshnik-equipped missile units in Belarus.

That's important, but the drone point is, is the important part for this one.

Two and a half months after Ukraine confronted Minsk about this relay network, the head of Ukrainian military intelligence was still saying Belarus-based repeaters are an active security concern.

These are things that I remember telling you on this show when I came back from Iran in February, um, that I didn't know whether they were real or not or were going to be seen on the battlefield, but this is what now six months later people are talking about.

But the other thing is, uh, uh, d- uh, multiple warheads deployed bef- prior to impact similar to the Oreshnik, uh, missile technology.

And, and, and the list goes on and on.

Next month we might be talking about some other new capability or feature.

And unsurprisingly, you know, all of these nations have made considerable investments in air defense, but there is a big challenge of capacity.

Uh, the other factor, of course, is that to some extent, when it comes to ballistic missile defense, particularly against, you know, longer range ballistic missiles like the Oreshnik, the, the intermediate range missile the Russians used against Ukraine, uh, we would currently be more or less entirely dependent on the Americans for now.

But when you break down Europe into its constituent parts, you know, the, the problem looks worse in some places than others.

Listening to the experts we've met in this episode, we focused essentially on one word, defense.