RUSSIA - UKRAINE JANUARY 11, 2026

Politics

The news item of importance, and one that is of little surprise to anyone who has been following this war, President Putin said that Russia will not accept any NATO peace keeping force in Ukraine as part of any peace agreement. 

Does that mean this past several weeks have been a complete waste? Probably not. I would think that this probably a fairly good starting point, for future reference, as to what the European nations are willing and able to provide as a peace keeping force (in Ukraine or anywhere); knowing that would be of value to NATO as a whole, and in particularly to the US so that the US knows what we will need to provide to make any such force meaningful. As there appears to be little chance that the US is going to put army elements on the ground inside Ukraine, this provides a starting point for future discussions on how serious are the European members of NATO.

It’s probably something that should be pulled apart in detail, but here we are, almost 4 years into the war, and NATO as a whole (less the US) would have a tough time deploying 2 full-up brigades to Ukraine and sustaining them without US support. 

And that I think leads to an assessment that, presently, Europe is not serious about ending the war. If they were, they would have done something in the last 4 years. Rather, they are hoping that Russia will get tired first. And then they really won't have to spend 5% of GDP on national security. But hope is a poor plan.

I seems that Europe refuses to recognize that it has arrived at a decision point: Russia is not going to accept any of the European peace proposals; Europe - and Ukraine with Europe’s prodding, will not accept the Trump peace proposals; and Russia, which has rejected the European peace proposals, appears to have no intention to accept a simple ceasefire, a la Korea. So, the war goes on, Europe and Ukraine have no strategy to end the war except to keep Ukraine fighting and hope Russia tires, and there is a real prospect that President Trump will grow increasingly frustrated with Europe and NATO.

Combat Operations

Fighting on the ground continues, with no substantive changes. Reporting does suggest Russian forces have reached the eastern edge of Lyman (just north of the Donets River). Further south, fighting is spreading through Hulyaipole and has devolved into street-to-street fighting. It seems the Russian investment of Hulyaipole is moving quicker than normal and once again raises the fear of manpower gaps in Ukrainian forces.

Air Operations and the Oreshnik Missile

On Friday night (Ukraine time, afternoon EST) Russia conducted a large drone and missile strike on Ukraine. The strike (large but not among the largest), consisted of 14 x ballistic missiles, 22 x cruise missiles, and 242 attack drones. The Ukrainian Air Force claimed it shot down 8 ballistic missiles, 10 cruise missiles and 226 drones. Damage was reported across the country and at least 4 civilians were killed and 24 were wounded.

What is of note is that the Russians used an Oreshnik ballistic missile to strike an industrial facility near Lviv.

What is the Oreshnik missile? It is a variant of an already existing rocket, the RS-26, NATO designation SS-X-31. Russia identifies it as an IRBM (Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile). A missile is called an ICBM or IRBM by agreed definition, for the purposes of treaties. An ICBM is a ballistic missile with a range greater than 5,500 kilometers (3,400 miles), and IRBM has a range of 3,000 - 5,500 KM. The RS-26 has flown 5,800 KM in a test launch. 

But, we’ve done this in the past: the SS-20 was labeled an IRBM, and as such nominally carried 3 x Reentry Vehicles (RV). At the same time the missile had intercontinental range if deployed with only 1 RV. In the 1980s we agreed that the SS-20 was a theater nuclear weapon, an IRBM. The missile was commonly deployed with 3 RV’s (reentry vehicles) and as such was not able to reach well beyond Europe from where deployed inside Russia. Removal of two RVs (reducing the payload) would have allowed the rocket to put a single RV on most of the United States. But, we accepted that it was an IRBM and treated it as such, rather than what that would have been, a violation of the Strategic Arms agreements.

In the strike on Friday the missile was reportedly lofted, fired from a site near Brest, Belarus from a mobile launcher.  As per US - Russian agreements, Russia notified the US prior to the launch of (this pertains to the launch of any IRBMs or ICBMs). They did not specify where it was landing. The US Embassy in Kyiv issued a warning that an attack was imminent. 

This was the second use of an Oreshnik in the war; the first use was 18 November 2024, striking an idle industrial facility near Dnipropetrovsk, reportedly launched from the Kaluga - Orel test facility. This launch consisted of inert RVs.

The second launch was on January 9th. Note that there is still dispute over where this launch came from, either from a mobile launcher near Brest, Belarus, or from the Kapustin Yar launch faulty east of Volgograd. (The intelligence community surely knows but they have not yet cleared up the current discrepancy on line).

The video of Friday’s strike appears to be 6 RVs striking; later imagery showed what appears to be a small blast crater, suggesting an explosive charge in each RV.

One blogger also asserts that NATO’s Allied Radar Network showed a low altitude, high speed projectile consistent with a hypersonic vehicle.

If so, this would be of great note as it would be the first confirmed use of a true hypersonic glide vehicle.

Oreshnik, as noted above, is a derivative of the RS-26, originally modified to carry an Avangard Hypersonic Glide Vehicle (HGV).

This requires a little clarification, as many reports conflate multiple terms.

First, rockets are, for the most part, just rockets. A rocket is just a “throwing device.” Just as the harder, the faster, your throw a baseball, the further it goes, the faster the rocket gets the payload moving - which all takes place in the first few minutes of flight, the further it goes and the faster it’s going when it comes down. An inter-continental ballistic missile, which in some cases are nearly going into orbit (in one case it does) reenters the earth’s atmosphere at nearly 17,000 mph - mach 25 or so. If a rocket throws an RV 3,000 miles down range, the RV - no matter what the rocket - just before it starts slowing down (as it hits the atmosphere), is moving at 6,000 mph or so.

Now, there are exceptions:

The variations are: High loft and depressed trajectories. 

A high loft is just like standing in your back yard the throwing a baseball straight up, or nearly so. Theoretically the RV can come right back to you, but there are some simple navigation and mechanical issues that create a de facto “minimum range” for most rockets; you can shoot a rocket straight up and have it come straight back down, but it would require some extra work. For practical purposes rockets therefore have minimum as well as maximum ranges.

The other variation is: the depressed trajectory. This means simply that: the rocket pitches over further than what it would do for optimum trajectories and you shorten the range. This is normally thought of as a tactic to reduce an enemy’s response time.

According to various reports, Oreshnik uses a fast burn booster, and in the first 90 seconds reaches about 2 km per second. By the time the 2nd stage burns out, the vehicle is at 1,200 km altitude (700 NM) and at this point the HGV separates. It is, at this point, in free fall - gathering speed - until it reaches about 250,000 feet, at which point it develops enough lift (the air is thick enough) so that it can begin maneuvering. It then maneuvers, basically flying parallel to the earths surface (descending as it glides), the intention being to complicate fire control solutions by missile defense systems; the RVs are then released around 100,000 feet in altitude.

A word about maneuvering at Mach 10 (3,000 meters per second): the structural stress on an airframe moving at that speed is great; Turning (maneuvering) the airframe adds to that stress. And while this maneuvering makes things more difficult, a hypersonic vehicle is not jinking all over the sky like the Red Baron. A Mach 10 airframe at 10Gs translates into a 1.9 degrees per second instantaneous turn rate. A 100 G maneuver (which would require a heavily built airframe) would yield an 18.7 degrees per second instantaneous turn rate. As these are glide vehicles - no engines - they will be losing a good deal of energy as they turn, and that turn rate will drop, unless it keeps it’s nose down and trades altitude for speed.

Initial reports suggested this strike hit the Stryi natural gas field near Lviv. Later online blogger comments and images support the assessment that the target was Lviv State Aircraft Repair Plant in southwestern Lviv City. Tentatively, I’ll go with that. Actual extent of the damage has not been reported.

Thoughts

The important point here is that Russia has blurred a very important line: the line between use of conventional systems and nuclear armed systems.

If the Russians detect the launch of a Tomahawk cruise missile (however they might detect it) they know it is a conventionally armed weapon, as there are no nuclear armed Tomahawks. Conversely, if they were to detect an unannounced launch of a Trident missile, Tridents are only armed with nuclear warheads; they might well conclude that there was a nuclear strike taking place.

Reversing that situation, detection of an Iskander ballistic missile is understood to be a conventional system. Oreshnik was, until November 2024 assessed as a nuclear system. After the first use it was assumed that was a “one-of-a-kind” event. Now it has happened twice. And perhaps included the use of an HGV. 

This makes future assessments just a bit less certain. That sort of ambiguity is destabilizing. And that isn’t good.

v/r pete