Russians Launch New Missile at Dnipro, U.S. Provides Ukraine With New Tactical Weapons

The Russians today launched a new kind of missile at Ukraine, what the Defense Department is calling an “intermediate-range ballistic missile,” or IRBM, said the deputy Pentagon press secretary.

“I can confirm that Russia did launch an experimental intermediate range ballistic missile,” said Sabrina Singh during a briefing today at the Pentagon. “This IRBM was based on Russia’s RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile model. In terms of notifications to the United States, the United States was prenotified, briefly, before the launch, through nuclear risk reduction channels.” 

The IRBM missile was launched at the city of Dnipro. While Singh said the missile carried a conventional warhead, she also said it’s possible the missile could be fitted with other warheads as well. 

“It could be refitted to certainly carry different types of … conventional or nuclear warheads,” she said. 

The Defense Department has characterized the IRBM as “experimental” in that it’s the first time a weapon of its kind has been used on the battlefield in Ukraine, Singh said. 

“This was a new type of lethal capability that was deployed on the battlefield,” she said. “That’s certainly [of] concern to us … I don’t have an assessment of its impacts right now, but it’s something that, of course, we’re concerned by.” 

Singh also said an IRBM and an intercontinental ballistic missile have similar flight paths, high trajectories and can carry large payloads. 

“But the main difference lies in the range and the strategic purpose,” she said. 

Also, this week, the Defense Department confirmed that the United States would provide to Ukraine antipersonnel landmines. 

Yesterday in Laos, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III explained why the U.S. would provide antipersonnel landmines to Ukraine and how what the U.S. would provide is different than the landmines the Ukrainians are currently producing for themselves. 

“What we’ve seen most recently is because the Russians have been so unsuccessful in the way that they have been fighting they’ve kind of changed their tactics a bit and they don’t lead with their mechanized forces anymore,” Austin said. “They lead with dismounted forces who are able to close in and do things to kind of pave the way for mechanized forces.” 

In the face of that changing tactic, Austin said, the Ukrainians have been manufacturing their own landmines to slow down Russian advances. 

“They’re fabricating their own antipersonnel landmines right now,” he said. “The landmines that we would look to provide them would be landmines that are not persistent. You know, we can control when they would self-activate, self-detonate. And that makes it, you know, far more safe eventually than the things that they are creating on their own.” 

Singh told reporters today that the Ukrainians have assured the U.S. that the landmines, when they arrive, will be used only inside Ukrainian space. 

“Absolutely they have committed that they’re going to use these mines in their own territory,” she said. “I should have added that they’re not going to use them in populated areas.”