“This is purely to frighten and terrorize civilians. Russia is prepared to dig deep into its pockets for this.”
Deep, indeed. Apparently it takes 7+ multimillion dollar missiles to kill just one Ukrainian. If I was a Kremlin bookkeeper, I’d throw myself out a window.
Half a billion dollars for one day’s terror attacks against civilians.
And we all know how well terror attacks against civilians can win you the war… in just a single day! Look how London capitulated in WW II so easily!
Putin has not really studied history much, has he?
It’s worth remembering that Russia heavily targets the infrastructure, especially power production / distribution, as well. This costs Ukraine millions, and probably lives as well, indirectly.
Is this Russia admitting that their previous claiming of Ukrainian territory is bullshit? Surely there have been countless violations of the territory they supposedly claimed already. So why is this different? (Rhetorical.)
There’s talk that the attack on Bryansk was the work of a domestic (Russian) anti-Putin group, which is something the Kremlin absolutely can’t admit.
I could see China offering Russia more non-lethal support, you know, like sending more airsoft vests and plastic helmets, and maybe buying more discounted raw materials, but lethal aid is much more problematic. Not only because the Chinese don’t trust the Russians with turning their own weapons on them, but China has been working the past several decades to achieve superpower status and right now they need the west a lot more than they need Russia to achieve their aim. If they started supplying missiles to Russia, it would only be a matter of time before examination of the blast debris revealed those missiles’ origin.
Don’t bother. They have people for that.
Bit of a hijack off this, but I thought Russia and China still used different sized tracks, making trains a poor transport platform. However, it seems that is no longer a problem. They now have a problem of too much train traffic going back and forth. If China does ship missiles, trains all the way to western Russia are now possible.
Personally, I don’t see China giving two shits about who gets killed by their weapons as long as (a) it’s not in China and (b) the check clears.
They don’t want me to be hacked off at them and buy my aquarium filters somewhere else.
I agree China couldn’t care less about the loss of life on either side, but I strongly suspect the reason China has stayed out of the lethal aid business thus far is because they understand that the countries supplying weapons and support to Ukraine also happen to be the countries that buy the vast majority of China’s exports.
This Newsweek headline kills me ‘Kinzhal missile fundamentally changes the war’ (presumably in Russia’s favor). 
Russia’s Kinzhal Missile ‘Fundamentally Changes’ the War: Ex-U.S. Colonel (msn.com)
So Russia has now developed a hypersonic missile that’s nearly impossible to intercept. That would be of great concern if they were sitting on a vast stockpile and used that stockpile to lay waste to all the many thousands of strategic targets that exist in Ukraine. But they can’t have more than a handful of these. If they did they would have used them already. And their capacity to mass produce these advanced weapons requiring the highest grade (read western made) microchips is nonexistent.
An infographic issued by the Ukrainian MoD back in November estimated that Russia had 43 Kinzhal in stock at the beginning of the war, and as of November had used 16 and had produced 16 over the same period. If those estimates are accurate, they used up 4 months of Kinzhal production last night, and likely have 40-45 still in stock.
Also keep in mind that this is supposed to be the weapon system the west has no answer for, making it a key component of their nuclear deterrence, so presumably the won’t want to fire every last one at highly strategic coal-fired power plants.
I would also assume some portion of that total inventory is reserved for, and outfitted with, nuclear warheads and therefore off-limits for use in this contest.
An analysis of what a Ukrainian retreat from Bakhmut would mean.
In other news, Russia blames Ukraine for an an assassination attempt in Moldova.
FWIW, the NATO reporting name for the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal missile is ‘Killjoy’.
That’s assuming that they’re able to maintain a constant rate of production. If they can’t get the chips they need, then any production has to be drawing on whatever reserve of chips they have. How many do they have, and how soon will they run out of them?
The previous commentary is reassuring and makes sense. My fear was that the sudden onslaught may have been due to missiles being supplied by China, which would be a game-changer. I agree that this would be extremely provocative and unlikely.
They’re much more likely to get missiles from Iran than China.
Russia’s hypersonic missiles are very concerning. Apparently our current anti missile tech can’t shoot them down.
That should keep all the NATO leaders up at night.