Dear Friends,
It's another week in the "lame duck" administration of Joe Biden, and I have been paying attention to the brinksmanship going on between the US, UK and NATO on the one hand and Russia on the other. The Deep State will not go quietly into the night.
Additional intermediate range (cruise) missiles (up to 10) were launched into Russia since I wrote last week, most recently of the UK-made "Storm Shadow" variety. And just today media reported that the UK delivered more of them to Ukraine weeks ago.
The UK reports the Storm Shadow strikes have killed a Russian General and hundreds of North Korean troops.
President Biden said he will ask for $24 Billion more for Ukraine before he leaves office.
In response, Russia launched its own intermediate range hypersonic novel missile "Oreshnik" into Dnipro, Ukraine, shocking the west. It destroyed a large installation that makes rockets and satellites. Or " The local mayor said it had damaged a rehabilitation center, knocking out the windows and destroying a boiler room." Many western media claim the missile did not carry explosives/warheads and was simply meant as a demonstration of what the missile could do. In any event, it could have carried a nuclear warhead, but it did not.
It used a technology the west does not have, travelling at Mach 10 (1.5 miles per second or faster), with an estimated 23 baskets of munitions, according to Ted Postol, (or 36) which each may have had multiple munitions. It is invincible; it cannot be intercepted using either the Thad or Patriot anti-missile systems, according to Professor Ted Postol, emeritus at MIT. Putin made the same claim.
Eyewitneses in Ukraine reported explosions persisting for 3 hours.
Postol notes that western officials have no idea what they have unleashed. He stated that western media are not reporting correctly on what has been occurring.
But here is additional perspective: Russia did not launch a nuclear weapon in response to being attacked with US and UK-French missiles.
Furthermore, it is believed this weapon has a range of over 3,000 miles and can reach as far as the UK from Russia. Or, if launched from the far east of Russia, could hit the US. And it cannot be intercepted, nor can it be matched, for at least a couple of years.
This should give the cowboys in Westminster and the White House pause. They did not understand that they too could be hit. Now they do. This from the BBC:
Military analyst Vladislav Shurygin told Izvestiya that the Oreshnik was capable of overcoming any existing modern missile defence systems.
It could also destroy well-protected bunkers at great depths without using a nuclear warhead, he said, although there is no evidence of underground facilities being destroyed at the Dnipro plant.
Another Russian analyst, Igor Korotchenko, told Tass news agency the missile had multiple independently guided warheads, adding that the "practically simultaneous arrival of the warheads at the target" was extremely effective.
Justin Crump, CEO and founder of the risk advisory company Sibylline, told BBC Verify that the missile had the capacity to seriously challenge Ukraine's air defences.
"Russia’s short range ballistic missiles have been one of the more potent threats to Ukraine in this conflict," he said. "Faster, more advanced systems would increase that an order of magnitude."
Trump called the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rutte, to Mar a Lago this week. We can probably assume Trump told Rutte not to get NATO involved or there would be payback when Trump is President.
However, Russia said that two more US-made ATACMS strikes were launched into Russia from Ukraine on November 23 and 25, and that it was "preparing retaliatory action." Russia reported shooting down 3 of the 5 launched on November 23 and 7 of the 8 launched on the 25th.
Today, November 26, ambassadors from Ukraine and NATO's 32 members were due to meet in Brussels to discuss the situation. "But diplomats and officials at NATO have played down expectations for any major results from the consultations on Tuesday afternoon at the alliance's Brussels headquarters."
While Trump cannot control Tony Blinken and Jake Sullivan, he can tell buffoons Starmer and Macron that he will impose severe tariffs on their nations (or penalize them in other ways) unless they withdraw their personnel from Ukraine and target no more of the Storm Shadow missiles at Russia.
Congress can also act. Bloodthirsty as Congress has been toward Russia, it too may now understand that our military capabilities are no match for Russia and that continuing this game of chicken will not lead to a good end for the US.
I am an optimist. I believe that cooler heads will finally prevail. I am grateful that Putin has a cool head. This is a week in which we give Thanks. Let us be thankful that change is in store.
Meryl
