The representative of the Main Directorate of Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, Vadym Skibitsky, said that Russia has less than 200 Iskander missiles left and is now trying to save them, instead of using old S-300 missiles for attacks on Ukraine, which should be thrown away, Ukrainian Pravda reports.

• “I miss the Iskanders, there are less than 200 of them; this is reality. Now Iskander missiles are used extremely rarely. The last time, literally in August, when they attacked Kyiv, from the territory of Belarus,” said Vadym Skibitsky.
• “The number of missiles depends on the ones currently used by the Russian Federation. I calculated that S-300s are missiles that are stored for more than 30 years, and most of them are 35-40 years old. In fact, this is a missile that needs to be taken out of battle. It is modified. There are about 7 thousand of them.
• It is very easy to throw them away. Instead of spending money to destroy them, they are simply dumped on our land. If you calculate how many (S-300) they use (per day), it turns out that they still have enough missiles for three years.
• As for the Caliber system, it is estimated that they could produce 150-180 missiles per year. And the remaining stocks are saved, because about 70% of components are not produced in Russia.”

In fact, Ukraine has said since June that Russia uses low-precision missiles from old Soviet stockpiles for more than 50 percent of its strikes on Ukraine.

“The enemy’s targets remain military facilities, critical infrastructure and industry, transport networks. At the same time, the civilian population will suffer significant losses due to (too low-precision) strikes,” Gromov said.

“In more than 50% (of cases), the enemy uses rockets of the Soviet reserve, which are not accurate enough, to launch missile strikes. As a result, civilian buildings are affected.”

Can Russia Build More Missiles?

Many analysts believe that the Western sanctions mean that it will be difficult for Russia to replenish its stockpile of high-precision missiles.

In particular, high-precision missile guidance systems require semiconductors and transistors that are not produced in Russia or China, according to American experts.

What missiles does Russia launch over Ukraine? From Kalibr cruise missiles to the dreaded Iskander.

Russia has a wide range of cruise and ballistic missiles that it has used to attack Ukraine, its cities, military and civilian targets, and has already started firing missiles at Kiev and other strategic targets shortly after President Vladimir Putin announced that he authorized a “military attack.” operations” in a neighboring country.

In recent years, the Russian military has focused on developing missile attack capabilities as part of President Vladimir Putin’s program to re-establish Russia as a world leader. But the missiles currently being launched over Ukraine were most likely developed in the 1990s and 2000s, and some of them are modernized versions of Soviet systems.

Caliber 3M14 (SS-N-30A)

The 3M14 Kalibr missile (NATO designation SS-N-30A) is a surface-to-surface cruise missile that has become a mainstay of the Russian Navy in recent years.

Although commonly referred to in the press as simply the Caliber, the SS-N-30A is actually just one missile in a larger Caliber family of sea-to-surface weapons, which includes the SS-N-27 (“Sizzler”) . anti-ship missile) and anti-submarine missile 91R.

All 3 Kalibr missiles use the same vertical launch system, which is becoming the norm for the Russian Navy.

3M14 “Caliber” missiles can be launched from a warship or submarine and, having a range of 1,500-2,500 kilometers, can hit Kyiv directly from the Black Sea.

• class: surface cruise missile

9K720 Iskander (SS-26 “Kamen”)

“Iskander” is a short-range mobile ballistic missile complex capable of hitting targets at a distance of up to 500 kilometers. Using the TEL launcher and support facilities, the system can also launch cruise missiles.

In 2019, Russia had 12 Iskander-M combat brigades, each consisting of 12 launchers and associated support vehicles.

The Russian armed forces first used Iskander missiles during the 2008 invasion of Georgia. The Kremlin also sent a unit to Syria in 2016, but it was not used.

Russia also regularly sends Iskander systems to the Kaliningrad enclave, from where they can strike NATO forces in Poland and the Baltic states, as well as Finland and Sweden, which it threatened on Friday with “serious military consequences” if they tried to join North Atlantic Alliance.

The Russian armed forces also sent Iskander complexes to Belarus for “military exercises”, which became the reason for the invasion of Ukraine from the north.

• class: short-range ballistic missile