"Russia Releases Fake Video of Hypersonic Missile Strike" Topic

"We can now say for certain that the strike depicted happened nowhere near the western part of the country and not at some major military weapons storage area. It happened at a heavily bombarded rural area in the far eastern area of Ukraine"

"In satellite imagery The War Zone obtained from Planet Labs, you can clearly see the farm featured in the video. It was partially destroyed by the time the image was taken, on March 12th, 2022, a week before this video was released and news of Kinzhal's use was distributed"

link

Too much propaganda going on, and media has 0 credibility
Not really believing any reports.

Not really believing any reports.

There is such a thing as being too skeptical.

Didn't start this way in first 59 years

To be fair the propaganda is full on from all sides. I don't really believe combat footage from either side at this point. Even if the video is genuine, the interpretations are wild.

I don't begrudge Ukrainians using disinformation and a propaganda war to defend their country, I just take their videos with a pinch of salt as much as I do the Russians.

I heard today that the US military does believe the Russians used an actual hypersonic missile, but I'm skeptical of that too.

Supposedly, one was first used in Syria.

Seems like a very expensive waste of ordnance to me, but perhaps they are trying to test them out to see if they work as advertised, and to iron out any bugs.

Still, I would think they'd want to keep them in inventory, for when/if they are really needed, and use dumb bombs and other less expensive cruise missiles for indiscriminate bombardment of cities and civilians.

Of course, the standoff attacks do make sense, since they're worried about Ukrainian air defenses, and they've lost quite a few aircraft and helos reportedly over Ukraine already.

"Too much propaganda going on, and media has 0 credibility
Not really believing any reports."

So, you go to Google Maps, look at the satellite photo of the farm, and you still don't believe it?

Occam's razor: which is more likely? That the Russian government put out ham-handed fakes, or that notoriously "don't trust the government" open-source intelligence groups are lying as part of some deep state agenda?

"Still, I would think they'd want to keep them in inventory, for when/if they are really needed, and use dumb bombs and other less expensive cruise missiles for indiscriminate bombardment of cities and civilians."

You didn't follow the story, did you? The alleged hypersonic strike was on a weapons storage site. The complete argument is that the video wasn't that strike (whether it occurred or not).

The missiles aren't wildly expensive either. They get their high performance from being carried to maximum altitude by a MiG-31, which then accelerates to its maximum (loaded) speed before launch. That's a lot of initial kinetic and potential energy to work with. In addition the basic Iskander-M body doesn't have to worry about annoyingly thick atmosphere as it boosts to its maximum altitude and velocity. The aerodynamics and kinetics are pretty basic.

The U.S. could throw together something similar pretty quickly, except that we haven't built any aircraft optimized for speeds and altitudes that are generally useless.

Whether this video is fake or not, the Ukrainians responded as if the hypersonic strike indeed happened. I read they are decrying Russians using this war as a test bed of new weapons.

Which, as much as this invasion is criminal, is a funny thing to claim. What great power doesn't use war to field test new weapons? Everyone does it.