In simple terms, the Oreshnik is an intermediate range ballistic missile with a hypersonic glide vehicle – at least that's what we think – mounted on top. It’s powered by a multi-stage rocket – meaning there's multiple rockets stacked on top of each other, probably three rockets. And they drop off in stages as the missile rises, just like when a spaceship is launched. First the booster goes, then the next stage and then the final stage.
What's the point of having these stages in the case of a missile?
The idea here is to get it up to hypersonic speed, which is mostly accomplished in the "exosphere", the uppermost part of the atmosphere. It's outside of the normal atmosphere – you're almost in space. And this is kind of tricky, because the horizontal distance we're talking about, between launch and target, is not that far. There's only about a thousand kilometres between the launch site and Dnipro, in this case.
So then why does it need to go all the way up to space?
Because you want to get it to speed. And there's no atmosphere up there, so you can really move. And that's why you have multiple stages, because once you get it up above the atmosphere, then acceleration is really easy with the final stage. There are different numbers thrown around, but it seems to me that it reached a speed close to Mach 20 – that's more than 24 thousand kilometres per hour. Hugely fast.
And what exactly is the "hypersonic glide vehicle" that's mounted on top?
Well, the glide vehicle is the "secret sauce" here. And it's essentially what it sounds like – it's not powered, it's just a glider. But it's a space glider. So it skims along the atmosphere until it's ready to drop down and hit a target.
Has it already separated at this point from the rocket?
I don't know the exact point of separation, but I would guess so. Because, you know, we have very little to go on here. I'm not qualified in this area, but I'm sourcing my information on people who have thought about this and are qualified. I mean astrophysicists who know what they're talking about, like Ted Postol from MIT, for example. Now, the hypersonic glide vehicle is a very complicated issue because this is a system that, when it's outside the atmosphere or just barely in it, is gliding. There's not much temperature going on, because there's no resistance. But as it starts to come down into the atmosphere – just like an astronaut in a capsule coming in from space – it's going to heat up and it's going to slow down. By the time it's just above the targets it has slowed down by about half, maybe from Mach 20 down to Mach 10. That's still pretty damn fast. I mean, that's well beyond the capabilities of any air defence systems that we have.
And how hot does it get, coming down through the atmosphere at that speed?
Putin said that the temperature was about four thousand degrees Celsius. I mean, that's really hot. The surface of the sun is something like five or six thousand degrees. So the glide vehicle has to be made with very special materials because it has to withstand these temperatures. And this stuff is going to glow. And to be able to release warheads at that kind of speed, and at those sorts of temperatures, is quite a trick. And we don't know how they did it.
When we see the videos of this thing hitting the ground in Dnipro, it does look like it's glowing. It's like a ball of light coming down super fast. So it's because of this extreme heat?
Yes, that's why you're seeing it. Otherwise you wouldn't see it. And you can see six packets that are released. And then there's another thing you can see. If you look at that same video, off to the left you'll see something else explode. That might have been the glide vehicle itself, after it had released the six packets. It's just a guess, but that's what it looks like. Anyway it worked, for sure.
I've heard there were no explosives on it, that the destruction was purely from the kinetic energy because of the speed. Have the Russians actually come out and said this?
I don't think the Russians actually said that, but that's pretty much what everyone's concluded. There are no explosions other than the glide vehicle. The packets that are coming in are not exploding. And there's no fire above ground, no fireball or anything like that, that you could see. So then we have to go on what the eyewitnesses heard and saw. And they say it was like an earthquake. And that even some distance away, where people live, their homes were cracked by the violence of the impact. So what you have here is a classic bunker buster – but without explosives, based only on kinetic energy. Which means penetrating deep down into the ground. Actually each of the six packets contained four to six sub-munitions, so there were 24 to 36 penetrations of the earth. And then essentially the shockwave is so great that everything is pulverized.
Pulverised – as in "nothing left"?
Yeah, "pulverised to dust". That's what the witnesses said. And then they cordoned off the thing and no one can get anywhere near it, except for US or NATO people who are coming to examine what happened. So they don't want you to look. We know that it hit between two major workshops that are numbered seven and eight in this industrial complex – which is a missile-producing complex, an old Russian one. And the presumption is that there were underground workshops, maybe four floors down, where they were making missiles, missile parts. And it seems like the hit was accurate. That is to say, they hit what they wanted to hit, which is no small accomplishment with something traveling that fast, and where course corrections – once you're that close to the target – are almost impossible.
So this is something that's really new in the world, in terms of weapons technology.
Well, yeah. I mean, the Chinese have a hypersonic glide vehicle, which they've shown off. Whether it works or not, I don't know. And the US tried to develop one – they had a contract with Lockheed, I think it was, to make something like that. Not the ballistic missile part, but the weapon itself. And that program failed, so they stopped. They tested it a number of times and it didn't work.
Do you know why?
I don't know, but I suspect – and this is only me speaking, because I have no information on it – that probably they had trouble with materials.
Because of the heat?
Yeah, with re-entry into the atmosphere.
Are there any hypersonic weapons that don't go up to space and then re-enter the atmosphere?
Yes, there are other hypersonic weapons that work in a different way. The Russians have one called the Kinzhal – which means "dagger" – which is essentially just a rocket with an extra booster to make it go faster, but it doesn't go into space. It's launched from an airplane, but I understand it can also now be launched from the ground. It's relatively short range, about 480 kilometres, or 300 miles. And they have another one called the Zircon, sometimes spelled Tsirkon. And Zircon uses a scramjet, which is a supersonic version of ramjet and is liquid-fuelled. It also doesn't go into space. This is actually a very special one, because scramjet is a technology that's just emerging as a new type of propulsion system for hypersonic weapons.
So there are different ways to achieve hypersonic speeds.
At least three ways so far. The glider vehicle which goes into space, very fast rockets like in the Kinzhal, and the scramjet which the Zircon uses. They all slow down as they go through the atmosphere, some more than others. By the time the Kinzhal hits its target, it's probably down to Mach 3 or Mach 4. In other words, it's not hypersonic anymore. We don't know much about Zircon, but probably it stays close to hypersonic when it hits the target. And of course, the Oreshnik is absolutely hypersonic. And that's a problem for air defences.
I've heard about one other relatively new Russian hypersonic weapon, called Avangard, which I believe is a long-range ICBM. What can you tell us about that?
Well, the Avangard is the glide vehicle. The intercontinental ballistic missile that launches it, the ICBM, is called Sarmat. But the point here is that that the Avangard is probably what we're also seeing on top of the Oreshnik, but in a smaller version. It's basically the same glide vehicle, slightly modified. The Russians usually are pretty economical about reusing stuff. The United States takes a different view, and funds something from the ground up – so it costs trillions of dollars and half the time works poorly. The Russians do it a different way. They kind of incrementally add, re-use, re-adapt. It's more economical for them to do it that way.
So the Avangard is the same glide vehicle we've already talked about, and it can be mounted either on a Sarmat ICBM, or on the smaller Oreshnik in a modified form.
Right. So you have Sarmat with Avangard – that's the ICBM. It can reach the United States, and it's strictly a nuclear weapon. And then you have Oreshnik with a smaller version of Avangard – that's the IRBM, intermediate range ballistic missile. It can reach anywhere in Europe, and it's modified to be dual use – nuclear or conventional. Actually, I wouldn't even use the word "conventional". I would call it nuclear or "other", where "other" is not an explosive weapon, but a kinetic weapon using some kind of very hard material that can penetrate the earth – like maybe tungsten carbide or something like that. And this kinetic weapon is a tremendous bunker buster.
The Russians have said that this strike on the Dnipro facility was meant to be a warning. Why did they choose this particular target, do you think?
Well for one thing, it was sitting there. I mean, they know the place because they built it – they know where everything is. And so it was fairly straightforward. But I also think they wanted to demonstrate that they could bust underground facilities. It was a direct message to Zelensky. He works out of a bunker, underneath the presidential headquarters in Kiev.
So he may be feeling more vulnerable now than he did a couple of weeks ago.
I would think so.
Why hasn't the US made it a point to develop something comparable? I mean, they must have known all about what the Russians were developing.
Yes, they've been following it. In fact, when it comes to the Avangard and the Sarmat, the Russians – as part of the strategic arms agreements – actually showed it to our guys. They saw it up close. It wasn't something they looked at from a satellite. So I think it's just been a slow response on our part in terms of finding solutions that could work.
Wouldn't you expect there to be a bit more urgency about this? What was the problem, in your view, as someone who knows the defence industry from the inside?
Well, we put our money into stealth. The idea being that we could fly airplanes against anybody's targets, including air defence targets, and knock them out. And if so, what do you need a hypersonic weapon for?
Right, because they can't see you if you're a stealth aircraft.
That's right. I just read an interesting article about this, and I won't say that I'm sure it's right, but I would say it's likely to be right. The Israelis just demonstrated the value of stealth in their attack, or counter-attack I should say, on Iran. They used the F-35, which is a stealth fighter, to knock out Iran's air defences. That enabled F-15s to go in and destroy other targets – because now the Iranians couldn't fight back. So I think that was a great demonstration of the American approach of using stealth. It seems that tactical and strategic aircraft like the B2, and now the new B3, should be able to go through anybody's defence capabilities, pretty much without a problem. So if the Iranian thing was any example, this formula seemed to work – and against Russian air defences too, because that's what was in Iran. The Israelis are our test bed for this sort of thing. In any case, our interest in hypersonics was maybe less than it should have been. Just as, on the Russian side, they were not really interested in stealth. They went in a different direction.
In terms of our neglect of hypersonics, in what ways could that leave us vulnerable?
Well the problem the US faces now is China. Our US aircraft carriers operating in the Pacific are potentially vulnerable to hypersonic weapons like the DF-21, the Chinese hypersonic. So that's a very worrisome problem. And I don't know that we have a solution to that.
So that leads me to my next question: how to defend against hypersonic weapons generally, and especially against the new Oreshnik. Is there any air defence, either now or in the foreseeable future, against this sort of hypersonic glide vehicle?
I doubt it. First of all, they're very hard to pick up on radar, if you can do it at all. And by the time you pick it up, you've already been hit. It's that fast. So no, the current generation of air defences can't shoot this down.
Not Patriot, not Aegis, none of them?
I don't think so. I mean, you may be able to make a case that Aegis, with its most advanced interceptor missile, could possibly do it. But they don't have the long range radars, and as far as I know they're not integrated with strategic air defences in a way that would give them a heads up that something was coming. I mean, we can probably see the booster phase of a rocket going up, but you don't know what kind of rocket it is. And when you try to track it, you can probably track the first stage, and maybe some of the second, although I doubt it. And then beyond that, you're lost. Our air defences are not that good. Most of them, with one or two exceptions, are what we would call "area" defences. They're designed to protect a city, an important military installation, a seat of government, that kind of thing. If you ever watch Patriots – and there's lots of video of Patriots intercepting or trying to intercept attacks – it's always right overhead. You never see them 100 miles away knocking anything out, because they don't. That's because it takes time to track, and then be able to launch against an incoming missile. That's one of the myths of all this – it's very hard to do. There are only a few platforms that can go out and kill something that can operate in space, or near space. The ground-based interceptor in the US, which is based in Greeley, Alaska, is supposed to be able to do that, but all the tests have been kind of poor. And the Israelis have something called Arrow 3, which can go into the exosphere and hit something. But I don't think it can hit a hypersonic weapon, because it can't find it.
Do you foresee in the future some technology developing that that might be able to do this? For example a space-based platform?
Well, we've got to go back to what President Reagan proposed, the Strategic Defence Initiative, or SDI. Also called Star Wars. Which was partly, at least, a space-based interceptor system that would get rid of these missiles in the boost phase, before they actually could release their weapons. And something like that is probably the way you do this. That will at least deal with the ones that go into space. Now, the more conventional ones like Kinzhal or Zircon, or the Chinese DF-21, those are trickier. But I think you can probably design radars that can go after those and pick them up.
It sounds like that's a long way off.
Well, yeah. Our evolution of air defences has been slow, very slow. And unfortunately, it's all been locked up into one major solution, which is Patriot.
I want to ask you about the recent "Kiel Report", which you've written about. What is the Kiel Report and what does it tell us?
The Kiel Institute is a think tank in Germany, a very well-regarded one, and it's just published a report on German defence capabilities, which also touches on Europe more generally. It's asking: Are we prepared for a war, in particular a war with Russia? And it concludes that we're absolutely not prepared, that there isn't enough there to fight a war. Which is correct. It's a mess. They don't have the ammunition, they don't have the platforms, they don't have the integration, and a lot of the money is wasted on projects where essentially the government's being ripped off by defence contractors. So the conclusion is that if you're NATO, the thing you want to do is to avoid a war with Russia. Which we all knew anyway. I've been writing about it for years.
We're talking now about Europe. But with America in the mix of NATO countries, doesn't that change the picture to some extent?
Yeah, but in the event of a war it would take the United States months and months to deploy enough Americans to Europe to make any difference. And by that time, a lot of Europe will have been destroyed. I mean, let's be honest. The US has around 100,000 personnel in Europe. Of these, probably 10,000 are fighting forces. The rest are support, logistics, radar, that sort of thing. Relatively few will be on the front lines with rifles and so on. So we can't bail out the Europeans. The Europeans think we can, but I think they're dreaming. What we do have – which is potent and strong – is stealth fighters. We have the ability to use air power. But the Russians have pretty good air defences. Now, whether they can knock off stealth fighters is, of course, a challenge. I don't know if they can do it yet, but they're working on it. But beyond air power, I think we're in kind of a negative curve. Because I don't think an American expeditionary force is the way to defend Europe. If you look at the history of expeditionary forces, they have never really amounted to much. The way to defend Europe is for Europeans to defend Europe.
So you're not a big believer in American power in NATO being much good to the Europeans.
The United States has the best military capability of all the NATO players, no doubt about it. But we're also the furthest away from where the action is. So we'd have a terrific logistics issue to deal with. Do you remember the first Gulf War? It took the US two months to build up to be able to operate in Kuwait. We don't have two months today.
Let's talk about the election of Trump and its implications. First of all, why do you think Biden has decided, now of all times, soon before Trump takes office, to authorize long-range missile strikes into Russia – when he declined to do so earlier?
He wants to screw Trump. Otherwise, there's no justification for it – and it risks the Russians attacking NATO assets. Because, of course, there are supply lines for this stuff. The Russians are already starting to hit the ports in Odessa where arms are being shipped in, which they hadn't been doing so much before. So I think it was a very dangerous move by Biden. And I think even Scholtz in Germany understood that, which is why he refused to send Taurus missiles to the Ukrainians. He didn't want to see Germany opened up to attack.
Could Biden be simply trying to help the Ukrainians hold on until Trump takes office?
Well, I don't think those long range missiles are going to change that. But yes, it seems to me the Biden people are desperate. They don't want a Ukrainian collapse while they're still in office. Because then you have another Afghanistan, and they don't want that to happen because they'll be blamed for it. On the other hand, I think maybe they had some idea that with these missile strikes, the Russians would say: Okay, we got the message, we'll slow down – we'll signal to you that we're not going to push so much in Ukraine for now. But that's not what happened, because it simply enraged the Russians. And I'm not sure we've seen the end of that yet.
What is your sense of what's happening now on the ground, on the battle front?
Well, I think the situation of the Ukrainian army is kind of desperate. My guess is the Russians are preparing a new offensive in the Zaporozhe area, trying to create a big "pincer", which they've done successfully in smaller areas. And this could trap the Ukrainian army in such a way that they can't get out. And there's a very high level of desertions among Ukrainian troops now, so much so that there's nothing the Ukrainians can do about it. The recruitment system that they put in place has failed to bring in enough new troops. And the ones they do get are very unhappy and don't want to do this, they're resisting. So it's kind of grim. I think the Ukrainians need to start negotiating, but Zelensky won't do it. So they need a new leadership that can negotiate a solution with the Russians. I mean, it's the only way out.
So let's talk about that. Trump does seem determined to end the war in one way or another, once he's in office. What do you think is the likelihood that he'll be able to persuade Russia and Ukraine to agree to some sort of terms?
I don't know yet. Apparently Yermak, the key advisor to Zelensky, came to Florida this past week and tried to persuade Trump that the only way out for Ukraine was to be put into NATO. He didn't persuade Trump at all, and they sent him home with nothing. So I imagine Trump will send General Kellogg [Trump's pick as special envoy for Ukraine] to Kiev, to try to talk to Zelensky. But Zelensky is not going to make a deal with the Russians, he's making that clear. He dangles things out there every now and then when he feels desperate, but he's not going to do it because he can't. The people who keep him in power are the most radical nationalistic elements, and they're not going to let him. So I think Trump will come to the conclusion that Zelensky has to go. Then there will be a successor government that will be more friendly to the Russians. And then they'll make a deal.
And what about the Russians, do you think they'll be willing to compromise in some way?
I think Trump can probably get something decent from the Russians, if he tries hard enough. Look, the US has other interests here. And to my way of thinking, Russia is the least of America's strategic problems. But if you have this kind of tension between the United States and Russia, it's very unhealthy for lots of reasons. And I think Trump understands that. I think he's going to want to talk to Putin.
We have some information about three plans that are being discussed among the Trump team. And all of them seem pretty far removed from what the Russians would be willing to consider. For example I believe they all involve Ukraine's NATO membership at some point in the future.
Yes, and that's off the table for the Russians. The Russians would never agree to that.
And there are other issues like that. So do you think there's any room, either on our side or their side, to negotiate in a way that would bring the two closer together?
Well, the Russians have their terms, which we don't accept. And we have our terms, which they won't accept. So we're very far apart right now. But – and this is important – there's no negotiation yet. There's no engagement. So all this is a lot of smoke. The two sides don't have any contact at all at this point, as Lavrov made clear in his interview with Tucker Carlson. And that is not healthy. Even Kellogg can't do anything without talking to the Russians. And I don't think the Russians will want to speak to him until after Trump and Putin speak. This is my guess. But we don't know how dire Russia's real situation is. We know about Ukraine, but there's also a lot of angst on the Russian side, and a lot of damage has been done to Russia. I'm thinking mainly of the manpower losses and the tremendous expense of the war. And the fact is that Russia can't develop its commercial side at all today.
So you think if they're offered something along the lines of opening up their economy to the West, reducing or eliminating sanctions, that this would persuade them to be a bit more negotiable on other points?
I think Trump could make them an offer that would be very attractive. And one that's not in any of these plans that we've seen. I'm thinking about the way Trump thinks. He's a deal maker. What is it that would make the Russians really happy, and solve some of their problems – economic, industrial, commercial, political? Something that would give them options. They don't have so many options right now. The Russians have made their bed with the Chinese, and they have India as a sort of ally. But most of their other friends – North Korea, Syria, Iran – are not exactly the sort of friends that you'd like to have. They don't do you any good, and in the end they cost you a lot of money. And they don't bring much to the table. In fact, I think there are very high tensions right now between Russia and Iran, and very high tensions between Russia and Syria. I don't know if they think they can save Assad's regime. Which means they might lose their naval base in Tartous, and they might lose their Hmeimim air base. They could take some big losses here. [This interview was conducted two days before Damascus fell to insurgents – Ed.] So they need other friends. It's true they're having great success with their economic system, the BRICS. But that doesn't get them from here to there. They need political and strategic deals. That's Trump – that's what Trump should be good at. And I think that's how he'll approach it – just my guess. Of course, I don't know how flexible the Russians can be.
Will the Russians agree to a ceasefire?
No. I don't know why they would. To allow the Ukrainians to reorganize themselves, get more arms, and kill more Russians? Why would they agree to that? It's in the US plan, I know. But anybody can see that it's not going to work.
You mentioned Trump is a deal maker. But can he afford, politically, to make a deal that gives Russia a lot of what it wants? I can already hear the cries of "Putin puppet!"
Well, if there was actually a negotiation today – based on the position of the Russians, the position of the United States, and the position of Kiev – it would not result in a deal. It's not possible. But if the Ukrainian government is changed, then I think everything changes along with it. And some of the hard positions can be softened up a bit. There are lots of ways to work out deals. At this point, what the Russians really want is to have confidence that NATO will stop expanding and stop being a threat to Russia. It wasn't the Russians that were being a threat to NATO, it was NATO that was being a threat to the Russians. Everybody loses sight of that. I mean, we cooked up all this nonsense, like: "We must stop them in Estonia and Lithuania and Latvia! And what about Romania, we must stop them there! And then Poland!" But what were they doing? They weren't doing anything. I think it's very unfortunate, actually. I think it's created a false narrative that has been very detrimental to everybody.
If they don't get a deal – for example if Russia refuses whatever Trump offers, and negotiations come to an end – what do you think happens next?
Well, I could be wrong, but I've been sceptical that the Ukrainians will last even two or three more months. To me, it looks like they're hanging on by their fingernails. So this whole thing could change overnight, in such a way that the regime would be forced out, the army would collapse. And then, either there'll be chaos or there'll be another government.
And what do you think the Americans, or the Europeans, would do in in a case like that? Anything?
No. I don't think so. What could they do? Are they going to send in troops? Where are they going to send them? It makes no sense. The Europeans have no power projection capability whatsoever. And anyway, at that point there would be no point in escalating. So, no. If Ukraine collapses there will hopefully be a new government, there will be some settlement, and that'll be it.
Presumably that would be a bad scenario for Russia, in the sense that it would eliminate the possibility of a deal that would lift sanctions and open up Russia to the West.
That's right. I think there's a real downside to that for the Russians. That's why I think Putin will listen to Trump. He'll make his suggestions, Trump will make his, and they'll try and figure out what they can do.
How do you see the future of NATO, after all this is over in Europe?
I think NATO's leadership needs to be replaced with people who are more realistic. We have to stop expanding NATO, restrain its ardour, and reorganize it as a defensive alliance. That's what its intention was. It's not a power bloc, it wasn't designed for that. And it's irresponsible. I mean, the whole Ukraine thing is really a NATO debacle. It's the debacle of all the leaders of Europe and the United States who promoted it. So we really need to re-examine the whole alliance. By the way, there was a question, when the Warsaw Pact disintegrated, whether there was even any reason to keep NATO.
And what was the reason they came up with?
They saw it as an opportunity to expand in Europe. And to some extent it was okay. I mean, former Eastern bloc countries wanted some form of protection, now that they were free of the Russians. That was understandable. But there had to be some limits on that, because NATO can't be expanded indefinitely without the resources to be able to support it. And the truth of the matter is that NATO cannot support it.
As we're seeing now, in a way.
Right. This is the test case.
