For months, Russia’s Oreshnik missile was hyped as a game-changing hypersonic superweapon capable of terrifying NATO and crushing Ukraine overnight. But when the Kremlin finally launched it in May 2026, the result was humiliation instead of dominance. From failed strikes and wasted millions to shattered propaganda and furious Russian military bloggers, this is the story of how Putin’s “wonder weapon” exposed the cracks in Russia’s war machine — and why the world is no longer afraid.
Support us directly as we bring you independent, up-to-date reporting on military news and global conflicts by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMilitaryShow/join
#militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis
#themilitaryshow
SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/7Fr98XUB
Support us directly as we bring you independent, up-to-date reporting on military news and global conflicts by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMilitaryShow/join
#militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis
#themilitaryshow
SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/7Fr98XUB
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00For months, Russian officials told the story of a weapon with the power to end the war with Ukraine
00:05in a single night. A next generation system. A hyped up hypersonic nightmare. Something so
00:13powerful, so advanced and so devastating, its eventual deployment would send shockwaves not
00:18just across Ukraine, but far beyond. Striking fear into the hearts of NATO leaders and once
00:25more re-establishing Russia as one of the world's most fearsome military powers. Its name
00:30was Oreshnik and according to Moscow, it wasn't just another missile. It wasn't even just
00:36another weapon. It was something that would change the face of modern warfare forever.
00:41The Kremlin did such an effective job of marketing the Oreshnik that the wider world began to
00:46buy into the hype. Stories were written and debates were had about what this weapon might
00:51be able to do when it was finally unleashed. Experts analyzed every piece of intelligence
00:57they could find about it, poring over blueprints and alleged technical specifications, imagining
01:02its awesome power. Even in Ukraine, there were many who feared that when Oreshnik entered the arena,
01:08Kyiv's chances of survival would take a serious hit. For a while, Moscow was winning. It had managed to
01:14terrorize the world without even needing to launch a single Oreshnik. It had built an aura of fear around
01:20a weapon that hadn't even been officially live tested. Then in May 2026, it made a mistake.
01:26A monumentally stupid mistake. It launched the Oreshnik and in doing so showed the world just
01:31how weak this so-called wonder weapon actually was. Before we look at how the launch unfolded and
01:36the embarrassing aftermath that Russia's President Vladimir Putin now has to contend with, it's important
01:40to take a step back and see why the Kremlin felt that now was the time to bring the Oreshnik
01:45back onto the
01:45battlefield. There are arguably two main reasons why a country might decide to effectively bring
01:50out the big guns and launch a huge and highly powerful weapon several years into the war.
01:55It might do so because it's winning. It's feeling confident, it's making gains on the ground and it
02:00wants to deliver the final crushing blow, shattering whatever's left of its opponent's morale before
02:05marching onwards to victory. On the other hand, a country might also resort to using a weapon like
02:10this if it's feeling desperate. With its forces weakened and months going by without major objectives
02:16being achieved, it might decide that the only option it has left is a sudden burst of shock and awe,
02:21with the hope of surprising and overwhelming its opponent into submission.
02:25In May 2026, Russia most certainly fell into the latter category. It's not winning the war. Far from it.
02:32The early gains and momentum of 2022 have all but evaporated. Almost zero major towns or cities have been
02:39captured since the first year of the campaign. The country's economy is slipping into a serious crisis.
02:45Its war machine is running on fumes and it suffered the worst casualties and overall losses of any major
02:51power since the Second World War. It's been embarrassed, isolated and shunned and its former status as one
02:58of the world's mightiest and most intimidating military superpowers has crumbled as it continues to
03:04struggle against a far smaller and theoretically weaker opponent. And the best visual representation
03:10of Russia's collapse came on May 9th, Victory Day, one of the most important dates in the Russian
03:16calendar, the commemoration of the victory of the Soviet Union over Nazi Germany in 1945.
03:21For decades, every year on May 9th, a grand military parade has taken place in Red Square of Moscow.
03:28Broadcast across Russia and beyond, it's historically been one of the most watched events of the year,
03:33the perfect opportunity for Putin to flaunt his military muscle.
03:37Past iterations of the parade have seen hundreds of main battle tanks shaking the very ground of
03:42the iconic Red Square while fighter jets scream overhead and the latest air defenses and cutting-edge
03:47missile launchers are rolled out for all to see. For the Kremlin, the event was as much about
03:52honoring the past as it was about showing off Russia's bright and glorious future. But as the war
03:58progressed, this once grand spectacle has devolved into a shadow of its former self. And on May 9th,
04:042026, the event almost didn't even go ahead. In the weeks building up to the parade, Moscow was awash
04:11with rumors about a possible Ukrainian attack during the event, or even an attempt on Putin's life,
04:16with the President reportedly resorting to hiding out in underground bunkers, fearful that his days were
04:21numbered. It was only after US President Donald Trump intervened and arranged a temporary truce
04:27between Russia and Ukraine that Putin actually decided to go ahead with the parade and show his
04:32face in the Red Square. To rub salt in his wounds, his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky issued a
04:38mock decree permitting Russia to hold its Victory Day celebrations and promising that no Ukrainian drones
04:44or missiles would disrupt them. The very fact that Zelensky was in a position to make such a jibe shows
04:49how the
04:50momentum of the war has shifted. It would have seemed laughable only a few short years ago to suggest
04:55that the Kremlin was frightened of hosting an event in the heart of Moscow in case Ukraine interfered.
05:00Now it's simply par for the course. It's a testament to how the tables have turned, with Ukraine becoming
05:05an increasingly formidable threat to Russia to contend with, right at the same time as Russia's own
05:10military machine reaches its weakest ever point. And even though the May 9th parade went ahead,
05:15it might have been better for Putin if he'd cancelled it instead. No tanks were present.
05:20In fact, there was no mobile military column whatsoever for the first time since 2008.
05:25Russia couldn't even drag some old Cold War or World War II-era tanks out to at least save face.
05:30It had nothing to show apart from a few hundred troops and a handful of fighter jets.
05:35While Putin stood in front of a small crowd to give his speech, speaking of Russian heroes on the front
05:41lines facing off against Ukraine and NATO combined, the world's media mocked the display, which only
05:47served to show just how far the Kremlin had fallen. Clearly, they struck a nerve. Putin's whole persona
05:52is built on power projection. Ever since he came to power, he's been desperate to present himself as
05:58some sort of strongman figure, the modern-day Peter the Great, the only one with the heart and grit
06:04needed to lead a country of such a size. But on May 9th, the evidence was clear to see.
06:09The Emperor had no clothes. And even inside Russia, Putin's popularity was slipping by the day.
06:15Not only that, but even though Ukraine had abided by the truce and avoided targeting Moscow,
06:20it was still carrying out numerous successive strikes on other important targets like oil refineries,
06:25ammo depots and military facilities, both in the occupied regions and within Russia itself.
06:31Pressure was rising on Putin. And his future was looking increasingly grim. And when authoritarian
06:37dictators start to lose their grip on power, they tend to behave like wild animals backed into corners.
06:43They lash out. True to form, that's exactly what Putin did. He knew he needed to change the narrative.
06:49The world was laughing at him. His grand parade was an abject embarrassment and time was running out
06:54for him to turn the situation around. But he had one final card to play, one last ace up his
07:00sleeve.
07:00The Oreshnik. The one weapon that could, perhaps, turn the tide. A weapon that would deal such damage
07:06that the world would instantly forget about the victory day humiliation. This would silence the
07:11critics. It would stun the doubters into silence. It would prove to the public that Putin was still
07:16the right man for the job and make the wider world frightened of Russia all over again. And so,
07:22the President gave the order. He didn't wait for his commanders to find an ideal target. He didn't
07:27form a sensible strategy or bide his time until the perfect moment came. He wanted to act immediately,
07:33delivering a big and bombastic blow to his enemy. He wanted fires and explosions and bloodshed,
07:38no matter the cost. And so, plans were put into place. Over the weekend of May 23rd to 24th,
07:45Russia would launch one of its biggest ever missile and drone attacks against Ukraine. It would target
07:50multiple regions all in one fell swoop, sending 90 missiles and 600 drones over the border.
07:56The total cost of the attack would later be estimated at up to, or perhaps even over,
08:00the $400 million mark. And the crowning jewel of it all would be the Oreshnik, which would arrive
08:06towards the end of the strike, delivering a finale that Ukraine, and the rest of the world, would not
08:10soon forget. Putin was confident, and it's not hard to see why. Like so many others, he too bought
08:16into the hype of this missile. Surrounded by sycophants and yes-men, he was led to believe it
08:21was truly a game-changing innovation. But was it really? To find out, we need to take a closer look
08:27at this weapon's development and true capacities. Despite being marketed as a brand new creation,
08:32the Oreshnik, which translates to Hazel Shrub in English, is actually believed to be based on a
08:38pre-existing system, the RS-26 Rubej, an intermediate-range ballistic missile that was
08:43developed in the 2000s and underwent several successful test launches in the 2010s, but never
08:49officially entered service. Many analysts and experts believe that the Oreshnik is simply a
08:53variant of the RS-26 with slightly less range, but capable of extraordinary speeds. Hypersonic speeds,
09:00to be precise. In military terms, hypersonic weapons are those that can exceed Mach 5,
09:05or 5 times the speed of sound, in excess of 3,800 miles per hour. The very word, hypersonic,
09:11is enough to invoke a certain level of fear and intimidation. Weapons that move this fast have long
09:17been regarded as almost unstoppable, able to speed past conventional defenses before they even register
09:23on their radar screens. That's why the world's leading military powers, including the United States
09:28and China, have poured huge amounts of money and resources into developing these sorts of systems,
09:33which could bring about a whole new era of warfare. And the Oreshnik wasn't just at the lower limit of
09:38hypersonic. According to the Ukrainian military, it was reportedly capable of exceeding not merely Mach 5,
09:44but Mach 10, giving it a peak speed in excess of 7,600 miles per hour, or 12,300 kilometers
09:51per hour.
09:52That places it among the fastest missiles in existence today. But speed isn't everything. Plenty of ballistic
09:59missiles exist that can travel at hypersonic speeds during certain portions of their flight paths.
10:04The real challenge isn't just moving quickly, it's staying on target and evading air defenses while
10:09traveling at those same extreme velocities. But that too apparently wasn't a problem for Oreshnik.
10:15Kremlin officials described how this missile boasted advanced maneuverability, allowing it to adjust its
10:20direction of travel mid-flight. They also explained that it was fitted with not one but up to six
10:25separate and independently targetable warheads. That alone changed everything. Suddenly this wasn't
10:31just a single threat, but a whole cluster of them. Each missile had the potential to cause not one but
10:37several devastating explosions, all at once, in different locations. On paper, it was a terrifying
10:43prospect. The Oreshnik wasn't just rapid and agile, seemingly able to evade the latest and greatest air
10:49defense systems, but it was dramatically more destructive than anyone had originally imagined.
10:54In short, it seemed that this weapon truly lived up to the wonder weapon label.
10:58Finally, the Kremlin may have created something that was worthy of the hype and propaganda attached to
11:03it. A weapon that traveled 10 times faster than the speed of sound, followed complex flight paths to
11:09evade detection, gave defenders almost zero time to prepare or protect themselves, and packed enough
11:14firepower to level entire cities. On top of all of this, the Oreshnik also has the capacity to carry nuclear
11:20warheads. This didn't seem like just another addition to the Russian arsenal, but a new tool of
11:25psychological warfare, something that would make the Kremlin's enemies fearful and obedient for
11:30generations to come. And in November 2024, Russia gave the world just a glimpse of what this weapon could
11:37do. It carried out its first ever Oreshnik strike against Ukraine, not with a fully powered missile,
11:43but one that had been fitted with dummy warheads, effectively as a way of proving that the system
11:47was operational without revealing its full capacities. It was on November 21st that the missile was
11:53fired from the Kapustin Yar training ground, striking a piv de mash plant in Dnipro.
11:58Putin called it a live fire test of the new system, while proudly proclaiming,
12:03modern air defense systems that exist in the world and anti-missile defenses created by the Americans
12:07and Europe can't intercept such missiles. In the aftermath, analysts around the world assess the
12:12implications of this new weapon, fearful for what it might mean for the future of Ukraine and even
12:17for the integrity of the NATO alliance. Maxim Starchak, an expert on Russian nuclear policy
12:23and strategic weapons, wrote that the test was designed to show that Russia had bigger and more
12:28powerful missiles than everyone else. Using such an experimental weapon was not supposed
12:33to undermine Ukraine's military per se, but to frighten Europeans into pressuring their governments
12:37to cut a deal with the Kremlin. For a time it looked like Putin's plan
12:41might prove successful, as the wider world was shaken by Oreshnik's alleged capabilities.
12:46But there were still question marks and debates about how effective it would actually be with real
12:50warheads. Was it the game changer the Kremlin claimed or was it in fact just another extremely
12:55expensive but not all that effective missile? May 2026 provided the answer.
13:01Before we take a closer look at that, if this is the kind of insight that you want more of,
13:05make sure you are subscribed to The Military Show. We break it down like this every single week.
13:11May 23rd and 24th were tragic days for Ukraine. Overnight on Saturday and into the early hours of
13:17Sunday morning, Russia's massive missile and drone strike rained down on the country's capital,
13:21Kyiv. All of the capital's districts were hit by a mixture of Kh-101 cruise missiles,
13:27Iskander-M's, Kh-47M-2 Kinzals and 3M-22 Zircons. Drones also flooded Kyiv's skies, including newer and
13:36faster models that were more difficult for Ukraine's defenses to stop them. Even with the capital's
13:41complex and layered system, made up of interceptor drones, electronic warfare systems, helicopters,
13:46surface-to-air missiles and mobile fire teams armed with machine guns, the attack was simply too
13:51large to cope with. While Ukraine managed to shoot down around 44 of the 54 Kh-101s and a
13:58portion of the other missiles too, along with many of the drones, some still made it through,
14:03colliding with residential homes and civilian infrastructure like the National Chernobyl
14:07Museum. At least two people were killed and around 90 injured as buildings were reduced to
14:12rubble and vast fires broke out across the capital. It was clear Russia was making a statement,
14:18snapping back at the prevailing narrative that it was starting to lose the war,
14:22with Keir Giles of Chatham House saying,
14:24Russia will have been dismayed at the shifting global perception of the war over recent weeks.
14:29The inching back of the front line, together with Ukraine's deep strikes into Russia,
14:33has shown many people the deep cracks in Russia's previous narrative that its victory was inevitable.
14:38In the aftermath of the attack, however, analysts noticed something very unusual.
14:44Russia had indeed fired an Oreshnik missile the night of May 23rd. But it didn't strike the heart of
14:49Kyiv. It didn't wipe out a major military installation or site of strategic importance.
14:54Instead, the Oreshnik targeted the much smaller city of Bila Serkva, an estimated 50 miles south of
14:59Kyiv. The obvious question then emerged, why? Why would the Kremlin plan this massive attack on the
15:05Ukrainian capital and decide to use its wonder weapon, but not actually send the Oreshnik into Kyiv itself,
15:10but towards some smaller city that seems to be of no major importance whatsoever?
15:15There are two obvious answers to that question. The first is that perhaps there was some sort of
15:20hugely important tactical target in Bila Serkva that Russia wanted to make sure it destroyed,
15:24though it sent its lesser missiles to Kyiv and saved the Oreshnik for this other location.
15:29But that theory doesn't hold water, because the missile didn't actually hit anything of note.
15:33In fact, according to open source intelligence that analysts have assessed,
15:37all it really did was blow up a few garages. The other explanation then is that Russia selected
15:42Bila Serkva because it was frightened of attacking Kyiv. Why? Because Kyiv is one of the most heavily
15:48defended cities in all of Europe. Many of Ukraine's best air defense systems are deployed there.
15:54That includes everything from AI-powered turrets to the legendary Lima EW system
15:58that can disrupt drone and missile signals to send them spiraling off course.
16:02There are also surface-to-air missile batteries there, along with other defenses designed to limit
16:07the effectiveness of Russia's relentless attacks on the capital. Russia knows all of this. It knows
16:12that over 80% of the drones and missiles it fires at Kyiv are usually intercepted, one way or another,
16:17and therefore go to waste. And it's likely that the Kremlin didn't want to run the risk of the same
16:22thing happening to the Oreshnik. It's not difficult to imagine how poor the optics would be if the Russians
16:27decided to unleash this weapon, which has so much hype and fear attached to it, only to see it taken
16:32out in mid-air by a Ukrainian or NATO interceptor. That would completely shatter the myth of the Oreshnik.
16:38It would have destroyed the massive fear factor that Russian officials have built around this system.
16:43So the obvious alternative solution is to pick a target that has far fewer defenses,
16:47with a much smaller chance of being able to intercept the wonder weapon, a target like Bila Serka.
16:53And so once again we come to the real reason behind the missile's launch. It was yet another piece of
16:58psychological theater. Russia wasn't actually trying to take out important targets. It wanted the world
17:04to see its missile in action. It wanted viral videos to spread online, showing the multiple warheads
17:10separating from the missile system and raining down on the city. In reality, however, the Kremlin's play has
17:16massively backfired. Putin wanted the world to see the full force of Russia's next-generation
17:21hypersonic missile system. Instead, all they can see is a few burned-out garages. And all of a sudden,
17:28the Oreshnik looks far less frightening than it did before. Because this attack underlines what many
17:33military experts have been saying for years. That even though this missile may be fast and look
17:38impressive at a glance, it has one serious flaw. It's inaccurate. We don't know what Russia was
17:44actually trying to hit in Bilosevka. The city does have a small airbase used by the Ukrainian air force.
17:50There's a larger Soviet-era airfield nearby as well. Some experts believe that the missile was
17:55supposed to strike an aviation repair facility. Either way, it missed. These missiles are said to
18:01cost around $50 million each. $50 million is quite a high price to pay to blow up a few Soviet
18:07-style
18:07garages made of sheet metal and concrete blocks. But that's what Russia did. They wasted one of their
18:12rarest and most valuable assets and got precisely nothing in return, except more embarrassment. Even if
18:19they'd taken out the repair plant, the strike would still have made zero economic sense.
18:23And if the Oreshnik is as inaccurate and unreliable as it seems, it will almost never make any sense to
18:29use this missile at all. Because it will more than likely miss whatever it's aimed at and have almost
18:34no notable effect on the war whatsoever. And the story doesn't end there. It actually gets much worse,
18:41at least from Russia's perspective. Because here's the part the Kremlin desperately doesn't want people to
18:46know. According to the Institute for the Study of War and Ukrainian open-source analysts,
18:51it may not have fired just one Oreshnik on the night of May 23rd-24th. It may have fired two.
18:58Before the strike in Bielasevka had even occurred, Ukrainian monitoring channels reported something
19:02unusual. It seemed that a high-speed, high-altitude ballistic missile had been launched from inside
19:07Russian territory. All the signs were there. This was an Oreshnik missile and it was headed straight for
19:13central Ukraine. Analysts feared the worst, bracing for one of the most devastating impacts of the war
19:18so far. But then nothing happened. The blip on the radar disappeared. It didn't speed towards Kyiv
19:24or the surrounding towns and cities. It was simply gone. There were no videos, no images,
19:29no reports from Ukrainian civilians online talking about terrible waves of explosive warheads firing
19:34from above. A few hours later, the truth came out. The first Oreshnik had crash-landed somewhere in the
19:40occupied Donetsk region, around the Avdivka or Yasinvata area to be precise. Russian troops are
19:46actually stationed in that area and it's possible that the missile may have caused casualties among
19:50them. We don't know exactly how the situation unfolded, but there's no way that this was intentional.
19:55Even though Russian commanders tend to treat their troops like cannon fodder, they wouldn't go as far
19:59as launching a hypersonic missile at their own men. What seems to have happened instead is that the
20:04first Oreshnik suffered some sort of malfunction mid-flight. Perhaps its guidance system wasn't
20:09properly calibrated or one of its booster stages failed. Either way, rather than speeding into
20:13Kyiv Oblast, the weapon fell at the first hurdle and we can only imagine the level of panic and
20:18frustration that must have spread among Kremlin officials in the immediate aftermath. Even Putin
20:23himself most likely heard the news about this spectacular failure. It may even be that a second
20:28Oreshnik launch wasn't originally planned but that the order was quickly given as a desperate attempt to
20:33cover up the mess of the first one. This could also explain why the second missile struck a seemingly
20:38random town rather than anything of great importance, because the whole attack had to be rushed
20:42rather than planned out with care and precision. The long-term implications of this failure are
20:47enormous and were discussed in a recent report from the Institute for the Study of War which wrote
20:52Ukrainian Open Source Intelligence sources reported May 25th that footage from May 24th indicates that
20:58Russian forces launched a second Oreshnik and that the missile malfunctioned and struck a location in
21:04occupied Donetsk Oblast. If confirmed, these reports would indicate that one in every four Oreshniks
21:09that Russian forces have used thus far in the war have malfunctioned. Indeed, it's worth noting that
21:14along with the two missiles launched in late May, plus the one from 2024, another Oreshnik was fired in
21:19January of this year. It reportedly struck the Lviv State Aviation Repair Plan. That makes a grand total of
21:26four Oreshniks fired at Ukraine so far, one of which didn't even make it to the target area, giving the
21:31missile an embarrassing 25% failure rate. When we consider that the B-Lasevka missile only hit a few
21:37garages, then that one can arguably be classed as a failure as well. Now if this were just some cheap
21:43kamikaze drone or a relatively basic cruise missile, a 1 in 4 chance of failure wouldn't necessarily be that
21:48serious. Top military forces wouldn't exactly be happy about it, but they might accept it as simply the cost of
21:54doing business. But the Oreshnik isn't a cheap drone or basic missile. It's supposed to be a
21:59generational weapon, an IRBM designed to carry nuclear warheads. The ultimate deterrent, warding
22:06off any military actions from NATO and Russia's other enemies. How can you rely on a nuclear missile
22:11if it's got a decent chance of blowing up in your face or landing a thousand miles away from where
22:15you
22:16wanted it to? Short answer, you can't. If Vladimir Putin ever ordered a strategic nuclear strike using the
22:22Oreshnik as it is today, he'd be putting tens of millions of Russian lives at risk. He'd have a 25
22:27%
22:27shot of nuking his own territory, vaporizing his own infrastructure and wiping Russian cities off the
22:33map. Because of this, the Oreshnik cannot be classed as a deterrent. It can't even be classed as a
22:38functional ballistic missile. It's little more than a liability. A hugely expensive and ridiculously hyped
22:45liability that is fundamentally broken and may require years of additional development to ever
22:50be fixed. Even then, if we judge based on the dozens of other Russian military programs that
22:55started off strong but ultimately fizzled out into nothing, it's likely that the Oreshnik will never
23:00be able to do what Moscow wants it to do. In one single night, Putin ruined the one thing this
23:05weapon
23:05had going for it, its mystique. The world didn't know exactly how good or bad it was, but they knew
23:11that
23:11Russia had put a lot of work into it and that it had the potential to be a game changer.
23:15That
23:16should have been enough for Moscow. It was so valuable to the Kremlin to have the wider world
23:20fearful of a weapon that it hadn't even seen in action. But in actually using it, Russia basically
23:25let the world know that there's nothing to fear after all. And even the country's own nationalists,
23:30Putin supporters and military bloggers realized this and have rightfully called the Kremlin out for
23:34making such a stupid error. Soon after images, videos and reports of the launch emerged,
23:39some of Moscow's best known Z-bloggers shared their thoughts online.
23:43Just expensive metal into the ground, raged one. Pathetic show-off nonsense, said another.
23:48The weekend attack on Kyiv was supposed to be a victorious moment for Russia. It was supposed
23:53to be the country turning the tide, flipping the script and upending all the ideas about it being
23:58on the ropes. Instead, much of the discussion online among the country's military experts focused on
24:03the Oreshnik and what a ridiculous waste of money it seemed to be. As previously stated,
24:08Russia spent an estimated $400 million on the drones and missiles used in that attack.
24:13$100 million of that was the cost of two Oreshniks. One went nowhere and the other blew up a few
24:18garages. It's no wonder the Z-bloggers are enraged. Their country's economy is spiraling,
24:23and their military leaders think that it makes sense to throw tens of millions of dollars literally
24:27away for nothing. On the broader stage too, Putin may have hoped that his use of the Oreshnik
24:32would send a shiver down the spines of NATO and European leaders. That didn't happen either.
24:37Instead, European leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the Kremlin's decision.
24:43Kaya Callas, meanwhile, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and a Vice President of the
24:48European Commission, saw right through the attack, calling it a political scare tactic and reckless
24:53nuclear brinkmanship, and noted that Russia had turned to such strikes after reaching a dead end on
24:58the battlefield. Kaya Callas went on to say that the Kremlin was only concerned with killing as
25:03many civilians as possible, and announced that EU Foreign Ministers would meet to discuss increasing
25:08international pressure on Russia in response. Antonio Costa, President of the European Council,
25:14also condemned the attack, calling it a merciless display of brutality directed against civilians
25:19and civilian infrastructure, and a stark reminder that Russia is not interested in meaningful
25:24peace negotiations. Like Callas, Costa affirmed that Europe remained firm and unwavering in its
25:30support of Ukraine and would not play along with Putin's games. Because the days of Russia terrorizing
25:35the world are over. After more than four years of failure in Ukraine, after countless lies,
25:40broken promises and empty threats, nobody believes a word that comes out of the Kremlin anymore,
25:45nor are they afraid of it. Partly this is because of Ukraine and its amazing displays of resilience and
25:50bravery and defying the odds and defending its territory, but it's also partly the consequence
25:55of Putin's own hubris and foolishness. After spending decades building his own strongman reputation
26:01and establishing his country as some sort of all-powerful, all-conquering force, the Russian
26:06President has subsequently set his own empire ablaze, making one monumental mistake after another,
26:12that have all served not to intimidate his enemies but to highlight his own insecurities.
26:18Ukraine, meanwhile, is quietly getting on with business and making some major breakthroughs in
26:22the areas that matter most, undoing Russia's advances and clawing back lost land. In Crimea,
26:27for example, Ukrainian forces are successfully isolating the region, severing the supply lines
26:32that Russia has relied on for years and paving the way for potential liberation, which you can learn
26:37about more in this video. Alternatively, you might like to watch this video to see how Ukraine orchestrated
26:42another devastating drone strike on Russia's Black Sea Fleet, dealing massive damage to one of Putin's
26:48finest warships. And for more breaking military news reports and insightful analysis of the latest war
26:54stories, make sure to subscribe to the military show before you go, and thank you for watching.
Comments