Days after staging their largest ever drone attack on Kyiv, Russia has closed airspace for three days around a testing site for its ‘unstoppable’ hypersonic ballistic Oreshnik missile.
Moscow issued a notice to airmen and shut the airspace ‘from ground level to unlimited altitude’ from 4am today until 8pm on November 30.
Last week, Putin ordered the launch of Oreshnik warheads without explosives, which hit a defence plant in Dnipro, Ukraine.
The “test” firing appears to have been a warning, but the next one could include live warheads with different results.
It is unclear if Vladimir Putin is planning a new Oreshnik launch in response to use of British and US supplied missiles by Ukraine to hit targets on Russian territory.
The airspace above Kapustin Yar missile test site in the Astrakhan region is used for testing many different types of missiles, most notably the Oreshnik.
The nuclear-capable Oreshnik is an intermediate-range ballistic missile which travels at speeds above Mach 10 – in excess of 12,300km/hour.
The Russian defence ministry has indicated it is preparing ‘countermeasures’ after US-supplied ATACMS missile strikes on an airfield in Russian territory.
‘The Ministry of Defense is closely monitoring the situation and preparing countermeasures,’ said a statement.
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Moscow claimed to have shot down most of the ATACMS missiles, and showed debris of the American long range rockets.
The move prompted the Russian ambassador to the UK to warn that using western-made missiles is dragging Britain into the conflict.
Andrei Kelin commented after UK-made Storm Shadow missiles were also recently used: ‘The UK is now directly involved in this war, because this firing cannot happen without NATO staff, British staff as well.
‘The US administration, supported by France and the UK, has made a deliberate decision to make these strikes, which seriously escalates the situation, and it can bring a collision between the nuclear powers.’
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