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Drone warfare once again forced Moscow into lockdown on Wednesday as three of the capital’s four airports abruptly suspended operations. Panic rippled through Domodedovo, Zhukovsky and Sheremetyevo as incoming flights were turned away and departures stalled. Sirens blared as air defences scrambled to intercept the latest wave of Ukrainian drones breaching Russian skies. Mayor Sergei Sobyanin confirmed multiple drones were shot down on approach, with emergency crews deployed to the crash sites. Ukraine launched a large-scale drone offensive overnight, targeting multiple regions in Russia. One since-deleted clip from Oryol shared by a Kremlin-aligned Telegram channel appeared to show a flaming...

The Kremlin announces that Putin is set to make an announcement shortly. The statement will be issued in one hour. Putin is reportedly meeting with the security council right now. The 3-day ceasefire in Ukraine is set to end in 1 hour 10 minutes. Interesting timing.

Gore's, Talbott's Red Russian roots How they 'Hammer'-ed out Washington-Moscow policy Posted: October 3, 2000 Loutchansky's name surfaced again last year, when the Washington Post revealed that first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton's two brothers, Tony Rodham and Hugh Rodham, were involved in a $118 million scheme to grow and export hazelnuts in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Their partner in the venture was Aslan Abashidze, who said his financial adviser was Loutchansky. Abashidze is a reputed member of a Russian organized crime family.The Rodham brothers at first balked and then agreed to national security adviser Sandy Berger's request that...

<p>The good news for the people of former Soviet Georgia is that their little Caucasus republic has advanced 160 years in political development in only a decade. The bad news is they still live in a violent, complex neighborhood, cursed with national borders that were expressly designed not to work.</p>

A terror weapon becomes less terrifying when it doesn’t work. After warning U.S. officials of its intention to launch, Russia lobbed a mysterious new ballistic missile—initially mistaken for a nuclear-capable ICBM—at the city of Dnipro in eastern Ukraine on the morning of Nov. 21, damaging buildings and injuring dozens of people. The mystery weapon turned out to be a variant of Russia’s RS-26, a 40-ton, solid-fueled missile with six independent reentry vehicles. Its name, Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin announced shortly after the strike, is “Oreshnik.” That’s Russian for “hazelnut tree.” Three months later on Thursday morning, the Russians reportedly launched...

Russia will launch the serial production of its new powerful Oreshnik missiles in the "near future," Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday. "In the near future, serial production of such systems should be ensured to protect the security of Russia and our allies," said Putin in a speech at the Russian Defense Ministry's final board meeting of the year on Monday, which was publicly broadcast. -snip- Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said last week that he had asked Putin to provide him with the new missiles, and Russia agreed to supply Oreshniks "for free."

Russia could launch another hypersonic ballistic missile in Ukraine in the coming days, but Washington does not consider the Oreshnik weapon a game-changer in the war, a U.S. official said on Wednesday. Russia first fired the Oreshnik missile at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Nov. 21, in what President Vladimir Putin cast as a response to Ukraine's first use of U.S. ATACMs ballistic missiles and British Storm Shadows to strike Russian territory with Western permission. Putin has previously said Russia may use the Oreshnik again, including to hit "decision-making centers" in Kyiv, if Ukraine keeps attacking Russia with long-range...

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Moscow could deploy its Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missiles system in Belarus in the second half of 2025, Russian state media said. Putin was responding to a request by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko during a summit in Minsk. He said Belarus would determine the targets for Oreshniks deployed on its territory.

The reverberations from the Oreshnik ballistic missile strike on Dnipro continue to echo two weeks after the event, mainly because President Putin keeps making public statements about what an effective weapon Oreshnik is. These are duly repeated by the media in Russia and abroad. The use of an intermediate range ballistic missile with conventional warheads was a world first. Containing no explosive, the thirty-six submunitions inflict damage by kinetic energy, “like a meteorite falling,” as Putin put it. The shower of artificial meteorites looked impressive, but the evidence suggests that it did little actual damage. The strike was more of...

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday threatened to strike "decision-making centers" in Kyiv with Russia's new hypersonic missile, hours after Moscow pummeled Ukraine's energy grid in an attack that left a million people without power. Russia fired more than 90 missiles and around 100 drones during the barrage, according to Kyiv, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urging his allies to respond firmly to what he dubbed Russian "blackmail." Putin said the fresh bombardment was a "response" to Ukrainian strikes on his territory with Western missiles. The nearly three-year war has seen a sharp escalation in recent days, with both sides deploying...

ASTANA, November 28. /TASS/. The simultaneous use of several Oreshnik missiles is comparable in strength to a nuclear strike, but it does not contaminate the environment, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, answering journalists' questions. "If you use several such systems in one strike at once - two, three, or four systems - it will be comparable in strength to a nuclear strike. But it is not nuclear because it is a) highly accurate and b) it is not equipped with a nuclear explosive device. It does not contaminate the environment. But it will be comparable in strength," Putin said.

Speaking at the CSTO summit in Astana on Thursday, Nov. 28, Putin said that Russian military officials are currently selecting targets across Ukraine – including military facilities, industrial sites, and command centers in Kyiv. Putin also discussed Russia’s recent deployment of the “Oreshnik” [Hazel tree] missile system to the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Nov. 21, a weapon he claimed “has no global equivalent.” “Oreshnik [Hazel tree] affects even highly protected and deep-lying objects,” Putin said, describing the missile as capable of reaching speeds of 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) per second and temperatures of 4,000 degrees Celsius (7,232 degrees Fahrenheit)....

In the event of massive use of Oreshnik missiles, the strike will be comparable to the use of nuclear arms, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a CSTO limited-circle session, APA reports citing TASS. "In the opinion of military and technical experts, in the event of a massive, group strike of these missiles, that is, several missiles at once, in a cluster, their single strike will be comparable to the use of nuclear weapons. Even though, certainly, Oreshnik is not a weapon of mass destruction," the Russian leader said.

A new ballistic missile fired by Russia at the Ukrainian city of Dnipro last week carried multiple warheads but no explosives, and caused limited damage, two senior Ukrainian government sources said. -snip- One of the sources said the missile was carrying dummy warheads and described the damage caused as "quite small". The second source said: "In this case, (the missile) was without explosives...There were no types of explosions like we expected. There was something, but it was not huge." -snip- U.S. officials have said Russia probably possesses only a handful of these missiles, which Western experts say appears to have...

Vladimir Putin's new 'wonder-weapon' caused little damage when he unleashed it on Ukraine, satellite pictures show, despite Russian claims that a defence plant in Dnipro was 'erased to dust'. Furious Russian pro-war military pundits are questioning if they have been misled by Putin's boastful claims over the 'unstoppable' Oreshnik.

The Russian president made additional comments on the new Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile system at a meeting in the Kremlin on Friday evening with senior officials from the Ministry of Defense and representatives of the defense industry.Russia already has a stockpile of Oreshnik missile systems, and a decision on the system's mass production has been made, Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced. "We will continue these tests, including in combat conditions, depending on the situation and the nature of the security threats that are created for Russia, especially since we already have a stockpile of such systems ready for use,"...

Kyiv’s Security Service salvaged the remains of the new hypersonic ballistic missile Russia fired at central Ukraine as it warned that Moscow would transform Ukraine into a “testing ground” for its bombs. Charred fragments of the new Oreshnik missile were put on display for reporters on Sunday following its use last week against a military site in Dnipro. The Oreshnik, Russian for hazel tree, appears to be based on Moscow’s RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile and is capable of carrying either conventional or nuclear warheads. Several destroyed components of the rocket were recovered from the blast, including mangled wires and...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed that the mass deployment of the Oreshnik intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) could rival the destructive power of nuclear weapons, highlighting its precision and strategic potential. During a meeting with military officials, defense industry representatives, and missile system developers in Moscow on Friday, Putin said the Oreshnik is not only an ICBM and a means of mass destruction but also a high-precision weapon. "I would like to emphasize one more aspect here. The Oreshnik missile system is not just an effective hypersonic weapon. Due to its striking power, especially when used en masse and in...