Ukrainian intelligence: Russia using more newly-produced missiles as existing stockpiles run low
Russia is continuing to burn through its strategic missile stockpile, and now firing more and more new missiles, with some produced as late as August, according to Vadym Skibitsky, a representative of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Intelligence Directorate. Skibitsky said such assessment suggests that some missiles are being used "directly from the assembly line."
Skibitsky said that for now Russia had enough reserves to continue to bombard Ukraine but was negotiating to receive missiles from other nations, including Iran. The Intelligence Directorate hasn't recorded any such delivery so far.
According to Skibitsky, Russia's capacity to sustain mass missile attacks in the long depends heavily on domestic production. On the surface, Western sanctions aim to limit Russian access to the necessary high-tech microchip equipment to guide its missiles, but Russia has nonetheless found some success in circumventing the restrictions, as the newly produced missiles prove.
Russia is understood to be running low on its stocks of high-precision long-distance missiles, according to the data published by Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov on Nov. 22, before the latest mass missile strike attack on Ukraine on Nov. 23.
Before the attack, Moscow had 119 Iskander missiles left in stock compared to 900 before the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 229 ship-launched Kalibr cruise missiles are understood to be left from the initial stock of 500 as of Feb. 23.
According to the data, Moscow still had 347 3M-55 Onyx missiles, 6,980 S-300 missiles, and 801 air-launched missiles of various types.Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told Politico on Sept. 4 that Russians had already spent almost half of their weaponry arsenal, estimating that Russia was down to just “four dozen” hypersonic missiles.
