https://www.wired.com/2009/09/mf-deadhand/Not a risk any sane person would want to take, we probably do have first strike capability on the Russians, there are stealth cruse missiles that can probably take out vital points, including the Kremlin while ICBMs take out the rest. A few decades ago a west German kid flew a light private plane all the way from Germany and landed on red square. I'll bet things haven't improved much since then!
Mathias Rust - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Mathias Rust (born 1 June 1968 [1] is a German aviator known for his flight that ended with a landing near Red Square in Moscow on 28 May 1987. A teenage amateur pilot, he flew from Helsinki, Finland, to Moscow, being tracked several times by Soviet Air Defence Forces and civilian air traffic controllers, as well as Soviet Air Force interceptor aircraft. The Soviet fighters did not receive permission to shoot him down, and his aeroplane was mistaken for a friendly aircraft several times. He landed on Bolshoy Moskvoretsky Bridge, next to Red Square near the Kremlin in the capital of the Soviet Union.
Made of Aluminum a great radar reflector, today things can be made from fiberglass covered foam, light, strong and stealthy too.
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Best not to find out if much was taken by corruption!
Poor Texas... I might miss you
The Americans dropped something like that in the sixties, just the shockwave would level buildings and kill people for a mile either side, as it passed over at low level. It ejected nukes upward on it's pre programmed flight path. I think it's still being developed in Russia and not deployed or fakes are. I suspect the highly secret Russian nuke and missile program is as corrupt as the rest of the place and will be hard hit by the high tech embargo and trade restrictions.
They just fired off a hypersonic missile
When the Soviet Union broke up, a good deal of their R&D and manufacturing of weapons components was located in Ukraine, to this day it still puts a hurt on the Russian defense industry, the Ukranian's are not a backwards people,a lot of know how is present in their country,now that they have received some forward thinking Western military training we can all see how dangerous they can be when defending their families and homeland.
I agree,and I believe it will be critical post-war,to punish Putin,but show mercy to the Russian people,no Versaille's style beat down,reparations to Ukraine but not pariah status for Russian citizen's,it will be crucial not to plant seeds of resentment toward the West in the hearts of ordinary Russians, when all these young minds mature post Putin, I would like Russia to be more stable and West leaning and maybe they can change the coordinates on their fearsome nuclear arsenal towards Mr. Xi and the threat he represents going forward the next couple of decades.
Yes, you are correct,Russia has heavily updated it's nukes,from what we've witnessed in Ukraine to the detriment of conventional forces,Putin concluded in 2006 that Russia had virtually no chance of victory over NATO in conventional warfare,shit his country has only 1/3 the pop. of the US,so he doubled down on the if Russia can't exist the whole world can't doctrine,and these new nukes are terrifying for sure,all I can say is I hope sanity prevails because these weapons can never be used and I hope people who "turn keys" in Russia are mentally stable and love life more than they love Putin's pride.
