Since the beginning of the invasion, Russia has fired well in excess of 1,000 missiles into Ukraine. Some of those missiles have made it all the way across the country. Last Sunday, a Russian missile struck a training facility outside the city of Lviv, less than 15 miles from the Polish border, killing 35 people. On Friday morning, four more missiles hit near Lviv, this time damaging an airport and facilities where Ukrainian planes are repaired.
These long distance attacks were carried out using cruise missiles. Missiles like the 3M-54 “Kalibr” and the cruise missile variant of the Iskandar-K can have operational ranges of several hundred miles and can be precision guided to hit specific targets. However, these missiles are costly, and they’re not invulnerable to defenses. Cruise missiles often end up routed over highways or other convenient landmarks, making their courses predictable and defensive fire using anti-aircraft weaponry more effective. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense reported shooting down three Russian cruise missiles on Thursday alone.
Russia has made heavier use of ballistic missiles which travel to targets by reaching a high altitude and curving down, almost like a somewhat smarter artillery shell. Though modern ballistic versions are equipped with fin steering systems that allow them to maneuver to a target during descent, the high altitude of their arcing flight makes they vulnerable to anti-ballistic systems like the U.S. Patriot, the U.K. Starstreak, and the aging Soviet S-300 (examples of which are now being moved into Ukraine). Ballistic missiles can also be occasionally taken down with anti-aircraft weaponry, but this is far from reliable and the results are rarely good (see the images of Russian missiles that struck buildings in Kyiv even after being intercepted).
Missiles are really not the biggest factor in Russia’s effort to reduce Ukrainian cities to rubble. Most of that genuinely dirty work is being done with artillery and with systems like the GRAD multi-launch rocket system. However, the ability of missiles to hit targets more precisely means that they’ve been go-to tools in taking out everything from TV towers to hospitals. If Russia really, really wants to hit something, they send a missile.
Except there are some indicators that Russia may be running out of missiles.
For one thing, 1,000 missiles sounds like a lot, but it’s far from the level of barrage many expected. The greatest number of missiles fired into Ukraine came in the first two days of the invasion, as Russia carried out an unsuccessful attempt to eliminate Ukrainian airports and anti-aircraft systems. A combination of bad intelligence, mobile equipment, and a surprisingly stingy use of missiles on Russia’s part meant that Russia has never achieved air superiority over Ukraine. Contrast the first 48 hours of the U.S. invasion of Iraq where about 3,000 precision guided bombs and missiles were used, with Russia using about 1/10th that amount in Ukraine. Since then, the 30 or so missiles Russia has launched each day have often been targeted at civilian facilities including apartment buildings and schools. They’ve had little effect on the Ukrainian military’s effectiveness.
In theory, Russia is equipped with updated hypersonic tactical missiles capable of traveling at over Mach 5, dodging anti-missile systems, and striking targets less than 30 feet wide from 400 miles away in seconds. In practice, the number of these actually deployed in Ukraine appears to be zero. Instead, targets in Ukraine are mostly being hit with Iskandar-K missiles, both cruise and ballistic versions. Even so these are genuinely good weapons—“good” in the sense of effective—with a variety of flight profiles and sophisticated targeting systems. They were designed to replace the older OTR-21 Tochka “Scarab” missiles which had a much more limited range and less accurate targeting. Firing from both Russia and Belarus, the Iskandar systems were capable of hitting almost any spot in Ukraine, and doing so with a good degree of precision.
Which makes it interesting that on Friday a batch of the older Scarab missiles was spotted rolling into Belarus. Depending on the type of OTR-21 system on these trucks, range may be up to 115 miles, but may be as short as 35 miles. That means that firing them from safe positions inside Russia or Belarus only makes it possible to reach a very limited part of Ukraine. To effectively use these weapons on most areas in Ukraine Russia would have to bring the launchers into Ukraine, making them much more vulnerable to attack.
However, there is another possibility. Both when Russia claimed that Ukraine had launched a missile strike that killed civilians Donetsk on March 14, and when they claimed that Ukraine had fired a missile into Russia on February 25, the supposed culprit was an OTR-21. Ukraine did have around 90 such missiles (as of 2020) and fired at least one into Donetsk during the 2014 Russian invasion.
If Russia is planning on shooting at Ukraine, positioning Scarab missiles in Belarus won’t give them a lot of targets. If they’re planning on shooting something in Belarus … they’re in the right spot.
Friday, Mar 18, 2022 · 6:49:22 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
The White House has now published the brief of the phone call between President Biden and Chinese party leader Xi. It’s a very brief brief for a phone call that lasted just under 2 hours. More details are certain to emerge soon.
“The conversation focused on Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. President Biden outlined the views of the United States and our Allies and partners on this crisis. President Biden detailed our efforts to prevent and then respond to the invasion, including by imposing costs on Russia. He described the implications and consequences if China provides material support to Russia as it conducts brutal attacks against Ukrainian cities and civilians. The President underscored his support for a diplomatic resolution to the crisis. The two leaders also agreed on the importance of maintaining open lines of communication, to manage the competition between our two countries. The President reiterated that U.S. policy on Taiwan has not changed, and emphasized that the United States continues to oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo. The two leaders tasked their teams to follow up on today’s conversation in the critical period ahead.”
Friday, Mar 18, 2022 · 7:44:12 PM +00:00 · Mark Sumner
Russian media has been running a report that three U.S. National Guard troops were killed in Ukraine, identifying the men by name. Russia describes the men — members of the Tennessee National Guard — as “slain American mercenaries.”
However, CNN reports that two of the three men are actually still not just in the Tennessee guard, but currently in Tennessee. The third man is no longer in the guard, but nowhere near Ukraine. All three men were in Ukraine in 2018 as part of a training exercise with Ukrainian forces. Russia has been showing a flag with the men’s names on it next to bodies it claims are “American militants.”
Whether Russia is doing this as an internal PR stunt, or to justify claims that NATO has somehow stepped into the war, isn’t known. Both are possible.
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