Russia doomsday missile launch fears grow amid warning invasion NATO states is 'realistic'
Russian President Vladimir Putin has closed the airspace over the missile test site from which he launched his notorious new doomsday Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile at Ukraine last year.
This week's closure happens as his former speechwriter predicts the Kremlin dictator will go to war against NATO in the Baltics. Airspace is now shut around the Kapustin Yar site when the nation carries out tests on multiple new missiles, but it is unclear if the current closure from 4 to 8 August is linked to another imminent Oreshnik launch.
Putin has only used the 'game-changing weapon' once - in a 'test' launch in November 2024 against Ukrainian city Dnipro, without a live warhead. The Russians claim Oreshnik is unstoppable by current Western and Ukrainian defences. It comes after a lip reader revealed exactly what Donald Trump and Keir Starmer said to each other on the golf course.
New tests are expected and Putin says Oreshnik is now 'up and running' in serial production, with the missile complex due to be supplied to his ally Belarus later this year. 'We have produced the first serial Oreshnik system,' said Putin on 1 August. 'The first serial missile. It has been delivered to the army.'
An announcement on 4 August by the Russian foreign ministry that it was abandoning a moratorium on deploying medium- and short-range missiles may be linked to Oreshnik. 'The conditions for keeping the one-sided moratorium on deploying similar weapons are gone and the Russian Federation no longer feels tied to the self-imposed restrictions it agreed to before,' said the ministry.
Russian ex-president Dmitry Medvedev said: 'This is a new reality all our opponents will have to reckon with. Expect further steps.' Putin claims targets would be incinerated, by Oreshnik missiles unleashing a temperature of 4,000C, almost as hot as the surface of the sun.
Russian state media has said that an Oreshnik launch from Belarus could hit London in eight minutes. From its current test launch base in southern Russia, it would take around 20 minutes. Russia issued a NOTAM - notice to airmen - restricting airspace over Kapustin Yar in its southern Astrakhan region.
The flight ban is due to stay in place until Friday - the day Trump's Ukraine deadline expires when the US president will likely have to respond to a Putin failure to engage with a ceasefire and peace moves. Airspace was similarly closed at Kapustin Yar in May but without an Oreshnik launch.
Tests on multiple other missiles could be underway at Kapustin Yar. Separately, ex-Putin speechwriter Abbas Gallyamov said a Russian invasion of the Baltic states is now 'realistic'. He told We Can Explain media that Putin 'may tell himself that since it is not possible to solve the problem of Ukraine per se, it must be made part of a more global deal between Russia and the West.
'Or even between the Second and First Worlds. He may decide that this will allow him to avoid the feeling of defeat [in failing to grab the whole of Ukraine].' Opening this 'new front' would 'create huge problems for [Donald] Trump personally. Trump frequently says that the conflict in Ukraine was 'not my war', blaming predecessor Joe Biden for allowing it to start during his presidency.
A Putin 'invasion' of the Baltic states - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - could 'no longer be described as 'not my war' which 'wouldn't have happened if I were president', said Gallyamov. New Russian aggression 'would be considered a personal failure' for Trump - who he accused of appeasing Putin - 'in the same way that Hitler's attack on Poland was considered a failure of [UK premier Neville] Chamberlain, which shamefully ended his previously quite respectable career.'
Gallyamov said: 'Perhaps this is precisely why Trump has suddenly hardened his position. 'He feels that Putin, under pressure from 'patriotic' expectations, will soon be ready for a new adventure, and wants to stop him before it happens. 'The American leader is trying to show his Russian counterpart that he should not underestimate him. Like, I'm determined and if necessary, I can hit.'
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