Ukraine's military intelligence reveals capabilities of Russian Zircon missiles
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Ukraine's military intelligence agency (HUR) published new details about the Russian 3M22 Zircon hypersonic missile on Aug. 31, revealing that its actual capabilities fell short of those claimed by the Kremlin.
The Kremlin has described the Zircon as one of Russia's most advanced weapons, touting it as a hypersonic anti-ship cruise missile capable of evading nearly all Western air defense systems.
Although designed to target and destroy warships, the Zircon has increasingly been used in Russia's large-scale missile attacks on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities. Ukraine's only currently available defense against the missile is the PAC-3 MSE interceptor, fired by the U.S.-made Patriot air defense system.
According to HUR assessments, the missile is slower than previously believed, carries a smaller warhead than Russia's low-cost S8000 Banderol cruise missile, and is not, in fact, a "hypersonic cruise missile" as Russia has previously claimed.
HUR described the munition as a ballistic missile rather than a hypersonic cruise missile. According to the agency, it used solid fuel, followed a quasi-ballistic trajectory, and had a range of 1,000 kilometers (620 miles).
The agency also identified 70 companies, including U.S. firms TriQuint Semiconductor and Altera Corporation, which was part of Intel, that it said either supplied components for or were involved in the missile's production.
Russia had previously claimed that the Zircon could reach speeds of up to Mach 9. HUR said instead that the missile's recorded maximum speed was significantly lower, at Mach 6.8.
HUR estimated that the Zircon carried a 120-kilogram warhead. By comparison, the S8000 Banderol, a low-cost cruise missile that Russia increasingly used to strike targets in and around Kyiv and Odesa, carried a warhead of about 150 kilograms.
Vadym Skibitskyi, deputy head of Ukraine's military intelligence agency (HUR), said in an interview with RBC-Ukraine that, as of Aug. 3, Russia had already met its annual production target for Zircon missiles, manufacturing 33 units in the first seven months of the year.
