Tag Archives: Cruise Missile

Was Lloyd Austin Just Killed In Ukraine?!

Claim : Lloyd Austin Was Just Killed In Ukraine!

On 16 January 2024, Real Raw News posted an article (archive) claiming that US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was just killed in Ukraine by a Russian cruise missile strike!

As usual, the article is long, rambling and confusing, so here is an excerpt. Please feel free to skip to the next section for the facts!

White Hats Confirm Lloyd Austin Killed in Ukraine

The White Hat coalition has confirmed that the criminal Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was killed in Ukraine on January 3 by a Russian cruise missile strike that annihilated a command post where Austin and a high-ranking Ukrainian military commander, Lieutenant General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, were scheming to overthrow Vladimir Putin, a source in General Eric M. Smith’s office told Real Raw News.

As reported on January 7, Russian FSB agent Andrei Zakharov told RRN that the criminal Biden regime’s claims about Austin being secretly hospitalized for a week were disinformation because Russian intelligence placed him in Kyiv at the time of his alleged hospitalization. He said 20 hypersonic cruise missiles destroyed a maze of subterranean chambers in which Austin and Zaluzhnyi plotted Putin’s demise.

Although White Hats didn’t dismiss the claim as propaganda, they wanted physical evidence of Austin’s death. They received that evidence, our source said, on January 14.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu sent Gen. Smith’s office a digital copy of Austin’s fingerprints, lifted from equipment he had touched in the Kyiv bunker. The prints were a 14-point match, more significant than the 10–12-point match used by courts of law to prove a person’s identity. Shoigu also sent surveillance photographs of Austin and Zaluzhnyi lingering outside the bunker a day before the strike. Our source said that Marine Corps Forces Cyberspace Command experts authenticated the prints and images.

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Truth : Lloyd Austin Was Not Killed In Ukraine!

The truth is – this is just another FAKE STORY created by Real Raw News, just to generate page views and money.

Fact #1 : Real Raw News Is A Fake News Website

Real Raw News is a fake news website that capitalises on making shocking but fake stories to generate page views and money.

To protect himself from legal repercussions, the owner and writer, Michael Baxter (real name – Michael Tuffin), claims that his articles are “humour, parody, and satire“.

That disclaimer, which is not clearly mentioned in his articles, lets him keep creating fake news to go viral, and generate money.

His articles have been regularly debunked as fake news, so you should NEVER share anything from his website. Here are some of his fake stories that I debunked earlier:

Everything posted by Real Raw News must be regarded as FAKE NEWS, until proven otherwise.

A March 2018 screenshot of Michael Tuffin, who goes by the pseudonym Michael Baxter

Fact #2 : Lloyd Austin Is Not Dead

This is really silly, but it has to be said – US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III is not dead. Neither was he killed in Ukraine by Russian cruise missiles.

If anything happened to Lloyd Austin III, not only would the Biden Administration have been informed, so would the US Congress. It would also have been reported by the press all over the world.

The lack of any legitimate report of his death is even more impossible after the recent political brouhaha over Lloyd Austin belatedly informing the Biden Administration and the US Congress that he was hospitalised for prostate cancer surgery.

In fact, Lloyd Austin has just been called to testify before the House Armed Services Committee on 14 February 2023, over his failure to notify the White House about his recent hospitalisation. Do you think anyone would have kept his “death” a secret?

The truth is – Lloyd Austin is very much still alive, after being released from the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Monday, 15 January 2024. On 19 January – 3 days after Real Raw News claimed that he was killed in Ukraine, he even had a voice call meeting with the Swedish Minister of Defense, Pål Jonson.

Fact #3 : Hypersonic Missiles Are Very Expensive

Real Raw News absurdly claimed that Lloyd Austin was killed by 20 hypersonic cruise missiles, when only one would have been sufficient. Okay, fine, you can throw in a second “just to be sure’.

Russia only has one hypersonic cruise missile in service – the 3M22 Zircon (Tsirkon / Циркон), known to NATO as SS-N-33. With a top speed of Mach 9, the 3M22 Zircon has the kinetic energy to easily penetrate bunkers. You don’t need 20 of them. You only need one.

It is also important to note that Zircon is extremely expensive to make, reportedly costing some $210 million per missile. If Russia actually fired 20 of them – that’s US$4.2 billion to destroy a single bunker. Not only is that an extravagant waste of money, Russia only started deploying the Zircon in January 2023, and has very few of them.

If Russia ever used a Zircon in Ukraine, it would have been reported by TASS, as well as military observers and the Ukrainian media. It never did. The Zircon remains the only missile that Russia has not deployed in Ukraine.

Fact #4 : Marine Cyberspace Command Does Not Authenticate Identities

Real Raw News laughably claimed that Russian forces stormed Kyiv to retrieve Lloyd Austin’s fingerprints. Never mind, they barely moved the frontline since October 2022. Russian forces are currently several hundred kilometres away from Kyiv.

It doesn’t even make sense for Russia to retrieve his fingerprints, especially when Ukraine and the United States would be able to authenticate Lloyd Austin’s death. On top of that – it absurdly claims that the prints and photos were authenticated by a Cyberspace Command unit!

The US Marine Corps Forces Cyberspace Command (MARFORCYBER) is a cybersecurity and cyberwarfare unit. It is meant to protect critical network infrastructure, and conduct cyberattacks. What it does not do is authenticate fingerprints and photos.

Everything posted by Real Raw News should be regarded as FAKE NEWS.

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Were Chinese Missiles Really Filled With Water?!

Claim : Chinese Missiles Were Filled With Water!

Bloomberg recently published a story on the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF), suggesting that Chinese President Xi Jinping purged its leaders after missiles were found to be filled with water instead of fuel, and that missile silos had improperly functioning lids.

Here is an excerpt from the Bloomberg story (archive):

US intelligence indicates that President Xi Jinping’s sweeping military purge came after it emerged that widespread corruption undermined his efforts to modernize the armed forces and raised questions about China’s ability to fight a war, according to people familiar with the assessments.

The US assessments cited several examples of the impact of graft, including missiles filled with water instead of fuel and vast fields of missile silos in western China with lids that don’t function in a way that would allow the missiles to launch effectively, one of the people said.

The US assesses that corruption within the People’s Liberation Army has led to an erosion of confidence in its overall capabilities, particularly when it comes to the Rocket Force, and also set back some of Xi’s top modernization priorities, the people said. The graft probe has ensnared more than a dozen senior defense officials over the past six months, in what may be China’s largest crackdown on the country’s military in modern history.

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AsiaTimes then published an article, calling claims that there were water in Chinese missiles “a fake story” (archive).

Water in Chinese missiles’ tanks is a fake story

The idea that water is substituted for fuel is preposterous: Corrosion-prone rockets are kept empty until needed

The story is technically naive when it comes to China’s missiles. China does not keep its liquid-fueled rockets filled with propellant. This means they are empty sitting in silos. If fuel was stored in a rocket booster the internal tanks and plumbing would soon be ruined by corrosion. The military fuels them if there are warning conditions requiring loading the missiles with fuel.

So did Bloomberg publish a fake story on Chinese missiles being filled with water, instead of fuel? Is that even plausible? Let’s find out…

Why Water-Filled Chinese Missiles Is Plausible!

Unless you are working in the upper echelons of the Chinese government or the PLARF, it is quite impossible to know the truth. However, here are the reasons why claims that Chinese missiles were found to be filled with water is plausible.

Fact #1 : PLARF Also Operates Cruise Missiles

First, I should point out that the Bloomberg story never identified what kinds of Chinese missiles were found to be filled with water, instead of fuel.

Most people jump to the conclusion that it must be referring to their ballistic missiles. But that is not necessarily the case.

The People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force also operates over 300 cruise missiles like the Dongfeng 100 (DF-100), and Chang Jian 10 (CJ-10). Those missiles are mostly liquid-fuelled, being powered by jet engines that run on jet fuel.

The report doesn’t … specify what types of missiles are implicated. I’d note, for example, that the PLARF operates 300+ cruise missiles, which are mostly liquid-fueled.

– Masao Dahlgren, fellow at the Missile Defense Project, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)

Siphoning fuel is a common form of military corruption, and there is much less security over these cruise missiles. So it would be plausible for corrupt individuals to replace fuel in these cruise missiles with water.

Fact #2 : Liquid Fuelled Rockets Are Kept Empty

The AsiaTimes article is correct that liquid-fuelled rockets are generally kept empty, as liquid rocket fuel is both toxic and corrosive. Hence, these rockets are only fuelled when they are needed (for tests, exercises, or security alerts).

The Chinese Dongfeng 5 (DF-5) ICBM, for example, requires 30 to 60 minutes to fuel up, which is why it is due to be replaced by the solid-fuelled DF-41 rocket.

However, it is plausible that some of these rockets might have water left in their propellant tanks, after they were fuelled during tests or training exercises, and then defuelled and washed with water.

Fact #3 : Missile PBV May Be Filled With Water

It is also plausible that water was found in the Post-Boost Vehicle (PBV) found on ballistic missiles with multiple warheads. The PBV uses onboard rocket motors to deliver multiple warheads onto different trajectories, allowing a single ballistic missile to hit multiple targets.

These rocket motors are almost always liquid fuelled. So it is plausible that some of these PBV rocket motors were found to contain water, instead of fuel. Such a scenario could be due to gross negligence, as @LIM49Spartan explained (archive) on X (formerly Twitter):

I’ve had some time to think about the Chinese “filled with water” claims; and I think I know what happened. Every modern ICBM has what’s called the “Post-Boost Vehicle”; which aims and releases the warheads following ICBM burnout.

Virtually all PBVs use some form of liquid hypergolic propellants — there are only a few exceptions, such as the USN’s Trident PBVs which use a series of solid propellant gas generators to avoid hypergolics on a submarine. (They also have much less delta V)

Finished PBVs have to pass a variety of quality checks before they’re released to the field. You’ve got to first check whether the entire system is leakproof, and then make sure that it can withstand launch vibrations.

I suspect that everyone tests their PBVs with non-toxic surrogate liquids for initial system pressure tests and when they’re placed on shake/rattle/roll tables to check if they’re leakproof under launch vibrations.

Otherwise, you find out there’s a problem with the PBV when the testing room is now on fire and full of toxic, corrosive and flammable materials. And to pass the shake testing, your surrogate has to approximate very closely the density/etc of flight materials.

I think what happened was that some PBVs finished their acceptance tests and through paperwork errors, were never actually drained, dried, and refilled with flight propellants.

They were in turn shipped to PLARF bases where they were weighed and found within acceptable flight mass + had the paperwork saying they were full of hypergols; and were accepted by the PLARF with no tests; b/c draining samples of hypergols is dangerous.

Said PBVs go on combat duty with the PLARF for six to seven years, before being downloaded for inspection as they’re now past the “warranty period”. They’re drained at this point by the PLARF and they find that they’re full of surrogate liquids, not actual hypergols.