Regarding reports about ICBM fired by Russia to Dnipro. My take is that one must be skeptical and cautious. Regarding the "intercontinental" claim, the distance from Kapustin Yar to Dnipro is about 800 km. It's not an intercontinental range. But it's complicated. Short thread 1/
Some reports mentioned the RS-26 missile. Even if we believe them, RS-26 is not really an intercontinental missile. It was tested at the range of more than 5500 km, but it is in effect an intermediate-range missile, (think of it as SS-20 2.0): 2/russianforces.org/blog/2017/07/r…
The RS-26 program was mothballed in 2018 One cannot rule out that RS-26 was taken out of its "retirement" for a strike. This implies that Russia had a number of these missiles in storage for almost ten years. Not impossible, but rather unlikely. 3/russianforces.org/blog/2018/04/b…
But it doesn't have to be RS-26. Most ICBMs have the minimum range and it appears that 800 km would be possible for modern Russian ICBMs . Some Topol-M and Yars ICBMs are road-mobile, so a launch from Kapustin Yar is possible. 4/ russianforces.org/blog/2017/07/r…
Using these kinds of missiles, whether RS-26 or a true ICBM, in a conventional role does not make a lot of sense because of their relatively low accuracy and high cost. But this kind of a strike might have a value as a signal. 5/
I would urge people to keep calm, not assume automatically that "intercontinental" is something inherently and immediately dangerous. But it should be taken seriously. Everyone should be cautious about making claims or sending and interpreting signals. 6/6
As Andrey @baklitskiy noted, if it was a true ICBM, Russia had to provide a launch notification notice to the US 24 hours in advance. But probably not to China, since the missile was not launched in its direction. 7/6
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