Eric Zuesse
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.
19 January 2026, posted by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8rblc8LNPA&t=2997s
“Theodore Postol: The Secrets of Russia’s Oreshnik Missile”
Glenn Diesen, 19 January 2026, interviews Ted Postol
49:58
How difficult is it to inter intercept the Oreshnik? There’s no interception. This thing is
50:03
not interceptable. people who are talking about intercepting it because there are ways
50:08
of uh there’s no intercepting it and the reason you wouldn’t be able to intercept it is because of the trajectory it
50:15
takes. It has this high trajectory. It releases the um uh the warhead at a
50:23
um uh at a uh a very high altitude. It
50:29
releases the warheads at a very high altitude. Can you see again where the the
50:35
go here? [PICTURES]
50:57
So you have you the the the munition uh accelerates
51:03
to about nearly 4 kilometers per second. In one minute,
51:10
if you’re here in the defensive area, what can you do about it? Now it coasts
51:15
to a very high altitude. It’s close to 750 kilometers altitude. I mean that’s tremendous.
51:22
It reorients itself at some point. You can do it anywhere along this trajectory and then deploys the canisters.
51:30
So now you have can — So you have six separate canisters, you know, moving away from the body.
51:38
How are you going to reach them? This thing is coming in at 4 kilometers uh or second uh and it’s taking minutes
51:47
to come in. You’re going to launch interceptors. Those interceptors are going to take minutes to get out.
51:52
They’re only traveling at maybe a couple of kilometers per second. By that time,
51:57
the canisters will have released the submunitions. So, where’s the defense? This is, you
52:04
know, there is no defense. There’s no way you could put together a defense against this thing. You know, it’s it’s
52:11
a pipe dream. It’s just something that someone who has no who hasn’t done any
52:17
simple arithmetic uh will come up with and make a claim. It’s just not true. There’s no way you
52:23
can. There’s no — the speeds and distances just don’t allow you to launch any
52:28
interceptors at this thing. And once the submunitions are off, what are you going to —you’re going to try to hit the submunition that’s traveling at three
52:35
and a three three and a half kilometers per second uh above the atmosphere. You’re going to going to launch an
52:41
interceptor at each submunition. It’s ridiculous. There is no defense against this. So, it does have that effect.
52:50
And you know in Iskander, there potentially potentially could be intercepted, but uh
52:57
I think if you look at the situation with the Iskander, it really can’t be intercepted because the Russians know
53:04
uh I I should have I I can I should have put some we know that if you maneuver
53:13
intentionally as the Iskander can do, the Patriot interceptor will not be able to
53:19
match the lateral motions of the incoming Iskander and hence it won’t be able to intercept
53:27
it. That’s why the intercept rates are so low. So the Iskander is potentially interceptable
53:34
with with a low probability of intercept but not zero. But the iscander is a zero
53:40
probability of intercept. So, so the iscander though is or
53:45
is is not a um uh
53:50
is not something that can be easily intercepted either. It’s basically a missile that’s nearly impossible to
53:56
intercept with current systems and with essentially any new systems that I can
54:02
imagine. So I’ve been asked uh to go to Poland in
54:08
March and give a talk at a missile defense conference and I have tried to tell the people at this conference or
54:16
holding a conference at a military university there that I’m going to disappoint the audience because what I’m
54:21
going to tell the audience is you can’t do any kind of missile defense against these ballistic targets. You can shoot
54:27
down airplanes, drones, airplanes, um hypersonic missiles. No. Uh but uh
54:36
the speeds of these things are too much too high a speed. The closing speeds are
54:41
much too high for a uh a standard interceptor like a Patriot or anything
54:48
that looks like uh anything like an air defense interceptor to to be able to
54:54
maneuver and hit. There’s just no way to do it. There’s no techn — You can’t see the target early enough to maneuver. You
55:02
can’t see the target with enough precision to know exactly where it is as it’s coming at you at far enough range.
55:10
You just don’t have time to maneuver to hit it. It’s just that simple. Hypersonic missiles are not going to be
55:16
subject to air defense intercepts. Well, this is interesting because Putin
55:22
recently made the comment that the United States or NATO forced his hand in
55:30
terms of developing this weapon. So essentially, yeah, Washington became the author of this as uh the Russians warned
55:38
ever since um Bush withdrew from the anti-ballistic missile treaty back in
55:44
2002 that uh if if NATO was going to establish this uh um ballistic missile …
MY COMMENTS:
As Postol makes clear, the Oreshnik and the Iskander can carry nuclear warheads but Russia isn’t doing that now.
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of this site. This site does not give financial, investment or medical advice.