The Russian Defense Ministry announced that a Kinzhal hypersonic ballistic missile was used in a special operation in Ukraine.
As reported by the spokesman of the Russian Defense Ministry, Brigadier General Igor Konashenkov, the operation took place yesterday and saw the use of "Kinzhal missiles" which "they destroyed a large underground depot with missiles and aerial ammunition of Ukrainian troops in the village of Delyatyn, in the Ivano-Frankivsk region ”.
According to Ria Novosti, it is the first time that such hypersonic ballistic missiles have been used in the conflict in Ukraine.
HYPERSONIC TECHNOLOGY
The general Pasquale Preziosa, former head of the Italian Air Force and today president of the Eurispes Security Observatory, last April he discussed this new and, in some ways, disarming technology on formiche.net.
China and Russia, writes Preziosa, have shown superior capabilities to the United States to equip with hypersonic technology the nuclear sector. The hypersonic Asian unhinges the previous balance of power in favor of China and Russia. During the "presidential address to the federal assembly", President Vladimir Putin he stated that "in 2024, 76% of conventional military forces will be equipped with the new weapons, while 88% of nuclear weapons will be modernized by 2021".
The intercontinental missiles with hypersonic Avangard capabilities (HGV - Hypersonic Glide Vehicle) and the combat systems based on the “Peresvet” Laser for Air defense and Missile defense are already deployed. Super-heavy ballistic ICBMs will be operational by 2022, Sarmat, capable of evading US ABM defenses and capable of carrying up to 24 HGV warheads. The number of combat aircraft equipped with hypersonic missiles Kinzhal (two thousand kilometers of range, with speeds up to Mach 10) will increase, as will the deployment of cruise missiles Kalibr (subsonic-supersonic) on combat ships. The hypersonic missile Zircon (one thousand kilometers, Mach 8-9) anti-ship (invisible to radar) will enter service shortly.
Russia has developed a more modern system of large Poseidon combat torpedoes for submarines ("tsunami apocalypse torpedo”) Capable of hitting coastal targets with thermonuclear weaponry (2 Megaton) and the named system burevestnik (Petrel), nuclear-powered cruise missile. Russia was keen to reiterate that it has achieved very high levels of national security, never achieved before.
China has already done the first tests on hypersonic aircraft. In the Gobi desert, the tests for the “Jiageng 1” aircraft, developed by Xiamen University after ten years of studies and designs, have long since completed; adopted the "wave-rider" design, similar to the US Boeing X-51 project (Mach 5.1, equal to 5.400 km / h) and last year the Peking University already tested an "I- Plane ”for speeds up to Mach 7.
In the United States, Raytheon is developing new hypersonic missiles with the Hypersonic Air-Breathing Weapon concept together with the Air Force and DARPA. European countries have not invested enough in hypersonic technological research and are looking for possible remedies.
While waiting to develop new state-of-the-art technologies and weapons to balance the hypersonic prevalence of Russia and China, the United States is developing the "Integrated Deterrence" for the mitigation of national security risks.
Today's geopolitical framework has changed a lot, decidedly more complex. The United States, and therefore NATO, have lost ground in the field of deterrence as a result of the new hypersonic capabilities achieved by both Russia and China. As a result, Europe, like the US, will no longer be able to enjoy the previous levels of security. The Western hypersonic gap and the new arms race negatively affect the security and defense levels of the US and, consequently, of Europe. The United States has in fact lost the high level of deterrence that had allowed it to exercise "dominance" in the past and consequently NATO is already showing signs of its weakening. The recovery of the military gap is complex from a technological point of view and costly for the financial part. NATO, and therefore the US, must work today to close the technological gap and restore a credible deterrence to restore previous levels of national security.
Europe can do a lot with Pesco, permanent structured cooperation, by renegotiating the transatlantic relationship on a new basis, intended to strengthen the role of the West in competition, but also in cooperation with the Asian one. The new negotiating bases would contribute to lowering the levels of instability of today's geopolitical framework, mitigating downward the risk levels of a traumatic transformation of the unstable world balances.
The US and China try in vain to get closer
The US President, Joe Biden, and the Chinese President, Xi Jinping, had two hours of "direct, substantial and detailed" conversation devoted largely to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and its implications "for Sino-US relations and the international order". This was reported by a senior White House official in a press briefing.
Biden "shared with Xi a detailed examination of how things have developed up to this point, his assessment of the current situation and his support for a diplomatic solution to the crisis," the official said.
"The president described our assessment of Putin's actions and his miscalculations. He also described the unity of the United States and its allies and partners, the unprecedented coordination with our European, NATO and Indo-Pacific partners, and the overwhelming global unity in the condemnation of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as in support for the Ukraine, ”the official added.
"President Biden has clarified the implications and consequences of any Chinese material support for Russia as it pursues its brutal war in Ukraine, not only for China's relations with the United States, but for the rest of the world."
Biden, the official said, "underlined concerns that Russia is spreading disinformation on biological weapons in Ukraine as a pretext for a false flag operation".
In Mikolayiv, in the South West, reports the BBC, a Russian missile attack hit some barracks killing at least 45 Ukrainian soldiers. The city has been under intense bombing for weeks after Russian forces tried in vain to outflank it to the north to aim directly at Odessa.
In the other great southern port, Mariupol, exhausted by the siege, the fighting has reached the center of the city, while the emergency services are working to save the hundreds of people who are allegedly trapped under the rubble of a bombed theater. hampered by Russian bombing.