Tsirkon: a Real Threat to America?ย As noted Russian journalist Pavel Felgenhauer pointed out in November 2021, โPresident Vladimir Putin declared that if the West deploys missiles to Ukraine that could reach Moscow โin five to ten minutes,' Russia is ready to counter by deploying a โnew naval hypersonic missile, which may reach [Western] decision-makers in 5 minutes, flying at Mach 9 speed.' (Militarynews.ru,ย November 30).โ (Emphasis added). Russia's newย nuclear-capableย naval hypersonic missile [the Tsirkon] was hyped by Putin as having a speed of Mach 9,โ stating that it would become operational inย 2022.
The context of Putin's statement was preparations for aย Russianย invasionย ofย Ukraine, not NATO missile deployments. Nine days after Putin's nuclear threat, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned about a Ukraine conflict becoming a new Cubanย missile crisis. Ten days after Putin's nuclear threat, Russian Chief of the General Staff General of the Army Valery Gerasimov declared, โโฆany provocations by the Ukrainian authorities to settle the Donbas difficultiesย militarilyย will beย thwarted.โ
Putin's claimed timelines for U.S. missiles attacking Moscow from Ukraine are ridiculous. He said, โI will repeat this once again that the issue concerns the possible deployment in the territory of Ukraine of strike systems with the flight time of 7โ10 minutes to Moscow or 5 minutes in the case of hypersonicย systems.โ Since the U.S. only has subsonic cruise missiles which travel at less than Mach 1, their flight time would have to be over five times greater than Mach 5 hypersonic missiles, and Mach 5 is only the threshold of hypersonic speed. What Putin was talking about had nothing to do with the deployment of U.S. missiles to Ukraine. However, it was apparently aimed at deterring any U.S. effort to support Ukraine against Russia, which was threatening an invasion through the threat of nuclear strikes against โdecision-makers.โ
The supposed U.S. deployment of missiles in Ukraine that could reach Moscow is purely fictional. It is literally a rehash of Soviet-era propaganda that the U.S. Pershing II non-strategic ballistic missile threatened Moscow. The Pershing II was designed to have insufficientย rangeย toย attackย Moscow. Its nuclear warhead was not capable of destroying hard and very deeply buried targets such as the Moscowย bunkers. The penetrator warhead that could attack hard and very deeply buried bunkers was terminated in the FY1982 budgetย process. The U.S., at some point, may deployย conventionalย missiles (the distinction between conventional and nuclear-capable missiles is very important) in Europe to counter Russianย nuclear-capableย missiles that were originally deployed in violation of theย INF Treaty.
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The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions ofย American Liberty News.
1 Comment
Hypersonic Mach 5-8 missile is for in-theater anti-ship and ground attack.
Hyperglide Mach 8-20 intercontinental missile skips off the atmosphere.
Russia has ‘deployed’ theirs last year and are operational. China will soon.
The US military has no ‘deployed’ defensive capability. Zip, Nada, Nothing!