If it even is an ICBM. Ukraine says it’s an ICBM, and they’re 90% confident about that. The US thinks it’s an IRBM, which given the range involved, would make more sense. If it’s an ICBM, then Russia did it just out of spite.
Spite, or to make the point that they have nukes and the capability to deliver them. An ICBM - or an IRBM for that matter - evokes nuclear fears, which is why the non-nuclear part needed to be clarified. They’ve been making threats about that recently, so I suspect this is Russia’s version of passive-agressive.
In principle there is very little difference between a low-performance ICBM and a high-performance IRBM, because decreasing payload mass can increase the range over the ICBM threshold.
Sounds like different militaries just classifying things differently
Also the range is the only thing that’s different between them, they can both carry nukes. I suspect they did this to make that point. They want Ukraine to be afraid of launching deep attacks.
Well yes we do, ICBMs are generally associated with nukes because their sheer cost normally makes them impractical for standard explosive payloads.
If it even is an ICBM. Ukraine says it’s an ICBM, and they’re 90% confident about that. The US thinks it’s an IRBM, which given the range involved, would make more sense. If it’s an ICBM, then Russia did it just out of spite.
Spite, or to make the point that they have nukes and the capability to deliver them. An ICBM - or an IRBM for that matter - evokes nuclear fears, which is why the non-nuclear part needed to be clarified. They’ve been making threats about that recently, so I suspect this is Russia’s version of passive-agressive.
From wikipedia:
Sounds like different militaries just classifying things differently
Also the range is the only thing that’s different between them, they can both carry nukes. I suspect they did this to make that point. They want Ukraine to be afraid of launching deep attacks.