Ukraine’s air force has said Russia fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) at the city of Dnipro, which if confirmed would be the first time the long-range weapon has been used in any armed conflict.
The claim was not immediately accepted by others, however. ABC News reported, citing western officials, that this was an exaggeration and that the weapon was in fact a shorter-range ballistic missile, similar to the types used repeatedly by Russia against Ukraine during the war.
Update: President [ Putin] says hypersonic missile (Oreshnik) fired at Dnipro military site in reply to Kyiv’s strikes in Russia with western missiles
But why? Aren’t ICBMs incredibly expensive? Like, rocket ship expensive because that’s basically what they are? Aren’t there other hypersonic options that are cheaper and less politically loaded?
They are. It’s a message, and rather expensive at that. For all intents and purposes, most notably to early warning systems, it was a nuke. Crazy Vlad over here flung one without a payload and triggered full on DEFCON 2 or even 1 just to make a point.
Maybe the propellant goes bad after a couple decades so you might as well? Idk
Or they need to test fire and train people anyways