America’s top missile-scientist says Russia’s Oreshnik is ‘uninterceptible’.

America’s top missile-scientist says Russia’s Oreshnik is ‘uninterceptible’.

19 January 2026, posted by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)

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“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.