The Ukrainian Air Force reported this Thursday the first launch of a Russian intercontinental missile along with other ballistic and cruise projectiles against Ukrainian territory, news that has raised fears of an even greater escalation of the conflict in the region. According to the local newspaper Ukrainska Pravda, The model used by Moscow had been an RS-26 Rubezh, with a range of up to 6,000 kilometers and capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. American sources denied, in the first instance, the use of an intercontinental missile. A few hours later it was the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who announced in a message on his social networks that it was a new ballistic projectile. Already in the afternoon, Russian President Vladimir Putin reported that the weapon used was a secret intermediate-range hypersonic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. According to the Pentagon, this new model would have been manufactured precisely from the RS-26 Rubezh.
The offensive, which sends a message to the United States and its Western allies about Moscow’s attack force, occurred after last Tuesday, on the 1,000th day of the invasion of Ukraine, kyiv launched American missiles for the first time. long-range ATACMS over Russian soil. That barrage was followed a day later by the launch of British Storm Shadow missiles. The characteristics of each of these projectiles are detailed below.
Ballistic and cruise projectiles
Ballistic projectiles, which can carry nuclear or conventional warheads, have a parabolic trajectory that allows them, once they reach the maximum height, through propulsion systems, and have overcome the atmosphere, to descend at high speed, unlike cruise missiles. , which move in a straight line regularly and at low altitude. The shorter range ballistic missiles are called tactical, with a range of less than 500 kilometers. The intercontinental ones (ICBM, for its acronym in English), however, exceed 5,500 kilometers.
He US Congress released a report in September in which he estimated that Russia has 326 intercontinental ballistic missiles, whose destruction capacity could be increased with the 1,710 operational nuclear warheads that the Kremlin has.
The US ATACMS
On the 17th, the outgoing president of the United States, Joe Biden, gave the green light to the use of ATACMS (the English acronym for the US Army’s MGM-140 Tactical Missile System) in Russian territory. Again it is a ballistic type projectile, but with a range of around 300 kilometers. It is the longest-range missile model delivered by Washington to kyiv. Until this week, the Ukrainian Armed Forces had not been able to use ATACMS against targets inside Russia, although they had done so on the Crimean peninsula, illegally annexed in 2014.
The recruitment of North Korean soldiers and the use of long-range missiles sent by Pyongyang pushed Washington to change its mind, although their use is restricted to the front of the Russian Kursk region, in which the Ukrainian army occupies about 650 square kilometers.
The ATACMS, which can carry conventional unitary or cluster warheads, have been one of kyiv’s star requests to its American partner along with the Patriot air defense systems. These ballistic missiles can be fired from the same launchers as the Himars delivered by the US to Ukraine, although the latter, also of the ballistic type, have a range of about 80 kilometers in the Ukrainian theater of operations. Since May of this year and following the offensive launched by Moscow in the province of Kharkiv, the Ukrainian army could use these Himars against bases on Russian soil near the border.
The British Storm Shadow
One day after the first launch of an ATACMS model missile into Russian territory, the Ukrainian Air Forces attacked the Kursk area with a British long-range Storm Shadow projectile, manufactured by a consortium (MBDA) formed by a French company ( Matra) and another from the United Kingdom (British Aerospace). The French version of this missile is called Scalp. The range of this type of projectile is around 250 kilometers. As with the ATACMS, the Ukrainian military had used them successfully against targets in the Crimea and the Black Sea before the Kursk Front.
Although London and Paris have not made a clear statement about the permission given to kyiv to use its missiles on Russian soil, the use of Storm Shadow this Wednesday against a Russian base implies that the two capitals, along with Washington – the missiles have American technology -, they have given their approval. Storm Shadows are launched from fighter planes and have the capacity to hit bunkers or weapons warehouses. They fly at low altitude using guidance systems to evade radars and detonate or drop their explosive payload once it reaches the target. As noted last June by the analysis center International Institute for Strategic Studiesthe main obstacle to firing these missiles is the need to mount them on Su-24M fighter aircraft, a model of which Ukraine only has five devices.
Kinzhal Hypersonics
In March 2022, a month after the invasion of Ukraine, Russia launched several Kinzhal (dagger, in Russian) hypersonic missiles against the invaded country for the first time. This projectile—eight meters long, one meter in diameter, 4,300 kilos in weight and 2,000 kilometers in range—was a step in the escalation of war. Although this type of ballistic projectile has not been decisive in the conflict, mainly due to the deployment in Ukrainian territory of the American Patriot air defense systems, the speed of its flight – it can reach the capital, kyiv, in just a few minutes – makes it difficult for citizens to predict and has caused terror among the Ukrainian population.
This Thursday, the Russian missile offensive launched against targets in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro included a Kinzhal Kh-47M2, according to information from the Ukrainian Air Forces. Moscow also launched seven KH-101 missiles on the same day, of which six were intercepted. This model of cruise projectile, lighter, but with speeds exceeding 900 kilometers per hour, is one of the best known and feared by Ukrainian civilians. It can fly burning fuel in regular trajectories and with guidance systems at very low altitudes, which complicates its interception. A KH101 hit the Ojmatdit children’s hospital in kyiv last July.
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