Lessons from Russian Missile Performance in Ukraine
By Mark B. Schneider
October 2022 Proceedings Vol. 148/10/1,436
The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine has involved the largest use of land-attack missiles in history, with launches from all basing modes. On 21 March, the Pentagon stated that the “Russians have launched more than 1,100 missiles,” and that “they have also suffered a not-insignificant number of failures of those munitions.” Four days later, the Pentagon added that “they’re still launching a lot of missiles,” but Russia was experiencing “a significant amount of [missile] failure” including “failure to actually launch or failure to hit the target.”
On 4 April, the Pentagon claimed Russia had launched more than 1,400 missiles and that its residual inventory is the lowest in cruise missiles. In late May, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky stated that Russia had launched 2,154 missiles and Ukraine believes Russia has depleted 60 percent of its precision-missile arsenal. Since April, resupply has been difficult and inventory depletion has continued.
This very large expenditure of missiles was clearly not planned because Russia expected a quick victory. Russia’s efforts to replace its missiles will be very difficult because of cost, production limitations, and the impact of the sanctions. Worse still, from a Russian standpoint, is that the attacks have demonstrated there are significant problems with the performance of Russian cruise missiles.
https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2022/october/lessons-russian-missile-performance-ukraine
