Russia's inventory of tactical ballistic missiles may have been depleted in its war on Ukraine, news outlets are reporting.
"Due to the fact that the enemy used almost the entire set of cruise missiles of the 'Kalibr' and 'Iskander' tactical missile systems during the first twenty days of the operation, he continues to launch missile and bomb strikes on infrastructure and housing neighborhoods of large cities using indiscriminate weapons," the general staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in a statement, according to The Jerusalem Post.
Forbes meanwhile noted the Pentagon calculated that Russia has fired more than 1,200 missiles into Ukraine. The outlet reported the largely air-launched cruise missiles use advanced guidance system to navigate to their targets.
The outlet further stated that Russia may be running short of the precision-guided munitions (PGMs).
"We do think that they are beginning to face some inventory issues with precision-guided munitions, which is one reason why you're seeing the increasing use of what we would call dumb bomb," an unnamed senior defense official said.
The SM News Agency reported that Russia may be holding back some missiles just in case NATO nations decide to get involved.
Cynthia Cook, director of the Defense-Industrial Initiatives Group at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said: "It's pretty clear [that PGMs are running short] from how we've seen the munitions usage transition over the course of the conflict.
"Part of what [Russia] is doing now is trying to ramp up their use of unguided munitions – artillery, rockets – and using some of their high-end weapons like hypersonic missiles in an effort to try to terrorize the [Ukrainian] population to convince the [Ukraine] government to step down rather than trying to get a traditional military victory. They're obviously hard-pressed to keep their munitions stocks up."
"It certainly is reasonable to assume that Russia is having similar problems with their PGM supplies: Guided weapon systems are expensive to produce [a single Javelin missile cost in the neighborhood of $175,000], and the Russian military may not have been able to purchase enough magazine depth to sustain their force at this intensity for months."
She noted the Kalibr and Iskander missile systems are relatively new and Russia has had little time to accumulate significant magazine depth, Forbes reported.
"I think the difficulty the Russians have is not just whether they have the production capacity. It's whether they have the key [components] to install," Clark affirms. "Some of their PGMs depend on computer chips supplied from outside of Russia. They're hoping that China may be able to supply those."
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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