Disclaimer: This article is based on actual news from the real world – honestly! However, it has been sprinkled with a healthy dose of satire.
The Institute for the Study of War settled on the word “malfunction” to describe watching an over-hyped “super-weapon” vaporize a mall belonging to the country that fired it.
The Oreshnik, on its way to wherever it decides to go. (Russian Defence Ministry Press Service)
Vladimir Putin’s Oreshnik missile cannot be intercepted, and it proved him right in the most embarrassing way possible: it slipped past every air defense between it and its target and put six warheads into the Rose Park shopping mall in Donetsk, a city Russia has occupied since 2014. True to its reputation, no defense system stopped it.
Putin had previously suggested “a duel of the 21st century” between his unstoppable missile and Kyiv’s air defenses. The terms were suspicious, however: Putin suggested Ukraine should mass every Western air-defense system it owned over a single point in Kyiv, then Russia would fire an Oreshnik at that point, and the world would watch Western technology, in his words, “stand no chance.” Ukraine declined, citing the fact that it was not born yesterday.
In fairness, Russia launched two Oreshniks that night, and the other one worked, striking Bila Tserkva near Kyiv as advertised. This leaves Putin’s signature wonder-weapon batting an even .500 on the question of which country Russia is currently at war with. ISW puts the long-run figure at one failure in four, which is considered blowing the curve for a Russian-made missile.
Russian state television, which has spent two years presenting the Oreshnik as the weapon that finally brings the West to heel, covered the Bila Tserkva strike but omitted any mention or footage of the Donetsk mall own-goal strike. A defense ministry that routinely announces the capture of towns it does not hold found itself with a confirmed strike on a town it does. Nobody in Moscow has explained what went wrong, which is understandable, because “the missile worked, technically” does not play to the Victory Day crowd.
This story is based on fully factual news, but if we got it wrong, blame these guys, we’re just here to make it funny.
