Vladimir Putin showed that strategic missiles can also be used as a warning signal, writes Finnish journalist Yrjö Kokkonen, a journalist who followed the war in Ukraine (as translated from Finnish).
On Thursday morning, Russia made military history when it fired at least one strategic multiple-warhead missile at the city of Dnipro in central Ukraine.
The superpowers began deploying multiple-warhead missiles as early as the 1960s, but they have never been used in a war situation.
As the name suggests, a multiple-warhead missile works by opening its nose cone as the missile approaches its target, releasing several sub-warheads.
Multiple-warhead missiles are intended to be strategic nuclear weapons, and their sub-warheads typically contain a nuclear warhead. For this reason, multiple-warhead missiles, or any other strategic missiles, have not been used in Ukraine before, or anywhere else.
Military experts rubbed their eyes when they saw a video released from Dnipro showing brightly glowing objects being thrown from the sky, heated in the atmosphere, but not exploding when they hit the ground.
Ukrainian and Western intelligence services knew immediately that it was a strategic missile. Russia had also warned of the launch. But the lack of explosions meant that there were no explosives in the warheads. It was just a Russian show.
The show had been initiated by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who, at least in his own opinion, felt compelled to respond in some way to the fact that the West had given Ukraine permission to use long-range ATACMS, Scalp and Storm Shadow missiles on Russian soil.
The originality of the scriptwriter of the show is illustrated by sending the missile on its journey empty. This has also never been seen on any battlefield before. There was quite a light show in Dnipro and the world's attention was guaranteed.
Putin's message was that we have bigger missiles that you can't stop. We can also put something in them. Putin also assured that such strikes are planned to continue.
Empty warheads hit the rocket and missile plant in Dnipro, whose production is important to Ukraine. There is no information on the extent of the damage to the plant.
According to experts, using a strategic multiple-warhead missile on this target was a huge waste, because it could have been fired with smaller ones, such as Iskander missiles.
In this case, Putin saw it best to increase the stakes and bring the world a little closer to a war with the biggest weapons again.
Source: yle.fi
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