Ukraine War
Ukraine, Russia and Cruise Missiles
Apart from the troops on the ground, Russia is fighting the Ukraine war from a distance with a huge but decreasing cruise missile inventory
Stop Press 19 July 2022:
Volodymyr Zelensky: “Russia has already used more than 3,000 cruise missiles against Ukraine”
Introduction
In an earlier story I questioned whether Russia was suffering from depletion of its cruise missile inventory in the Ukraine war and concluded that it was.
And then I wondered, what exactly does Russia have in its Ukraine land-attack cruise missile (LACM) inventory beyond the X-101/Kh-101 which I covered in that story?
As I dug deeper what really surprised me as an amateur was the breadth of ingenuity displayed in the designs, operational flexibility and characteristics of this weapon type.
Most, but not all, Russian cruise missiles have both anti-ship and land attack variants. Some are very specifically anti-ship, designed for sea skimming in the terminal phase and not therefore suitable for land attack.
There are basically two aerodynamic body types for cruise missiles— wing lift or combined…
