World holds its breath as Russia tests one of the largest cruise missiles on Earth
Russia’s Operation July Storm drills featured Kalibr cruise missile launches, a new hypersonic weapon, and 15,000 troops across the Pacific and Arctic.
Russia has wrapped up “Operation July Storm,” a sprawling set of war games involving 15,000 troops, 150 warships, and 120 aircraft operating in both the Pacific and Arctic.
The drills featured some of Moscow’s most advanced hardware, including the Admiral Golovko frigate, the Orel nuclear-powered cruise missile submarine, and the Bastion coastal defense missile system. According to Britain’s Express, these assets were behind the launch of Kalibr cruise missiles—long-range precision weapons capable of striking targets nearly 1,900 miles away.
The Kalibr family includes anti-ship, anti-submarine, and land-attack variants that can be fired from ships, submarines, aircraft, or ground launchers. Each carries a warhead of roughly 880–1,100 pounds of high explosives—comparable to the French-British SCALP/Storm Shadow, Germany’s Taurus, or America’s Tomahawk cruise missile. The Kalibr can also be fitted with a nuclear warhead and has seen combat before, including deployment in Libya last year.
Enter the Oreshnik: Russia’s latest hypersonic threat
Joining the Kalibr in Moscow’s arsenal is the Oreshnik, a new weapons system that Russian President Vladimir Putin says has now entered serial production. The name first made headlines last November when a missile identified as an Oreshnik struck the Ukrainian city of Dnipro.
Billed by Russia as “without equal anywhere in the world,” the Oreshnik is classified as a hypersonic weapon, capable of sustaining speeds between 1.5 and 1.9 miles per second (roughly Mach 7–8). It can carry up to six independently guided warheads, dramatically increasing its potential to overwhelm enemy defenses.
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