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Posted on 01/09/2026 6:13:39 PM PST by Navy Patriot
Yesterday, the fearsome Russian Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile ‘Oreshnik’ (‘Hazel’) was launched from the Kapustin Yar range toward Lvov, right on the Polish (and NATO) border.
The multi-warhead missile destroyed Europe’s largest underground gas storage facility, the Bilche-Volytsko-Uherske in Stryi.
The capacity of this facility accounted for over 50% of all Ukrainian gas storage.
The “Oreshnik” flew to Lviv in 10–15 minutes — traveling 1,800 km at a speed of over 6 thousand miles per hour.
The US knew in advance of the attack, since the American Kiev embassy issued a call earlier warning of a ‘potentially significant air attack’.
(Excerpt) Read more at thegatewaypundit.com ...
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Russia is becoming more desperate.
Lvov, formerly Lemberg (until 1918).
Russia is running out of friends.
Ukraine retakes 60 miles of territory from Russia in major blow to Putin
The movie clips of the multiple warhead re-entries look like lightning strikes.
It’s war. Why haven’t they done it before.
The reason is that Oreshnik is now deployed and in service.
It is considerably faster and more maneuverable than the test units used in the testing phase.
The Lightning Bolt effect may be because the warheads move through the atmosphere so fast that they generate static electrical discharges, ... Lightning Bolts.
The Russians have repurposed Oreshnik and made it more adaptable to modern warfare needs.
The official in service date announced was "Before Christmas, 2025".
Apparently the upgraded system was deployed two or three days before Christmas.
Trump seizing a Russian tanker, and our side, Johnny, the Europeans to discuss sending western troops as peacekeepers has caused Russia to send a message. I don’t think for a minute that they’re meaning to send peacekeepers. On one random day, the intent of flood western troops into Western Ukraine to take a peacekeeping positions long before there is a cease-fire. I think this is Russia sending a message.
What a bunch of ignorant B.S.
That gas storage is in formerly depleted gas fields 400m to 2000m below the surface, now refilled for storage. MAYBE if Russia could fire off 10 Oreshniks with specially designed bunker buster warheads and have every warhead (6 per Oreshnik) sequentially hit the exact same spot, they might get halfway “there”, or disrupt a feed down to a field. But, Oreshnik has nowhere near that accuracy: Getting a warhead within 300 ft. of “x marks the spot” would be dang lucky.
Even then, ground debris would likely collapse onto on and extinguish any fire ignited.
With reasonable luck, Russia likely hit some piping and valves, maybe a couple pumps, a couple buildings with control equipment, or similar. No secondary explosions or fires were seen, so no significant gas volume was ignited. Some customers in the vicinity reported low gas pressure.
The Ukies say some other facility was targeted, but I’ve seen no proof of that yet.
In truth, unless used with nukes, Oreshnik is far less cost effective than other smaller and more accurate missiles Russia has used - 3 times in the past, in fact, targeting this gas facility. Best guess is that this was a “warning’ response to the US for seizing the Marinera (formerly “Bella”) tanker, but Kristi Noem, at least, seems undeterred.
The Lightning Bolt effect may be because the warheads move through the atmosphere so fast that they generate static electrical discharges, ... Lightning Bolts.
LOL, they DO NOT generate "static electrical discharges... Lightning Bolts".
The non-explosive warheads, when falling have a layer that burns off, much like a meteorite.
Oreshnik missile was designed as a nuclear delivery vehicle where its diminished accuracy would not matter.
Russian desperation or an attempt at delivering a message to the West is the only reasons for its use.
Its like us launching a non-nuclear Trident missile($30 million) at Venezuela vs using cheaper Tomahawk missiles($1.5 million).
Repurpose? It's a new system. The whole point of US defense reform and the rise of companies like Anduril and Palantir and Trump's warning to Raytheon and the other "primes" [prime defense contractors] is that the sclerotic US defense industry and acquisition process cannot keep up with the pace of development and adaptation needed for the modern battlefield and certainly cannot do it at scale. That is why, while we were all projecting years ago that the Russians were about to run out of munitions, which several years later has turned out to be an utter falsehood, our own lack of magazine depth and production capacity meant that we could part with little from our arsenal and could not afford the replacements, either which are slow in coming as well.
Venezuela was a great operation - good to see we have a kernal of high quality well trained folks, and a cleaned up operational chain of command that could pull that off. But that was one operation. It's not a multi-year sustainable capability. And that is why the not quite panic, walk but do not run to the nearest fire exit call from the Trump admin. That is why battleships and new destroyers and calling on the South Koreans to help build new nuclear submarines is coming.
Everything you see is the kind of warning and indicator that a competent intelligence analyst would track to assess capability and intent.
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