Ukraine says Russia launched an intercontinental missile in an attack for the first time in the war.
@AssociatedPress reports: "While the range of an ICBM would seem excessive for use against Ukraine, such missiles are designed to carry nuclear warheads, and the use of one would serve as a chilling reminder of Russia’s nuclear capability and a powerful message of potential escalation."
@NewsDesk@flipboard.social @AssociatedPress@flipboard.com
Couple other things possibly at play (in what I see as a descending order of likelihood):
• string together several such launches and the question "do their ICBMs even work" goes away (though, obviously, not the "do their radiological payloads work" question)
• make their use not infrequent and you desensitize defenders to their use such that they spend fewer efforts trying to intercept them …meaning that an eventual nuclear attack has a higher likelihood of reaching its target(s)
• stocks of "normal" missiles are drawing low, necessitating digging into other types' stocks