Outgunned and outnumbered, Ukraine’s military is struggling with low morale and desertion

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/0...-intl-cmd/index.html

Dima never puts out a cigarette until he smokes it right down to the filter, risking burning his fingers to squeeze out one more drag. He spent years on the Ukrainian front lines. He knows the price of a good smoke.

As a battalion commander, Dima was in charge of around 800 men who fought in some of the fiercest, bloodiest battles of the war – most recently near Pokrovsk, the strategic eastern town that is now on the brink of falling to Russia.

But with most of his troops now dead or severely injured, Dima decided he’d had enough. He quit and took another job with the military – in an office in Kyiv.

Standing outside that office, chain smoking and drinking sweet coffee, he told CNN he just couldn’t handle watching his men die anymore.

Two and half years of Russia’s grinding offensive have decimated many Ukrainian units. Reinforcements are few and far between, leaving some soldiers exhausted and demoralized. The situation is particularly dire among infantry units near Pokrovsk and elsewhere on the eastern front line, where Ukraine is struggling to stop Russia’s creeping advances.

CNN spoke to six commanders and officers who are or were until recently fighting or supervising units in the area. All six said desertion and insubordination are becoming a widespread problem, especially among newly recruited soldiers.

Four of the six, including Dima, have asked for their names to be changed or withheld due to the sensitive nature of the topic and because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

“Not all mobilized soldiers are leaving their positions, but the majority are. When new guys come here, they see how difficult it is. They see a lot of enemy drones, artillery and mortars,” one unit commander currently fighting in Pokrovsk told CNN. He also asked to remain anonymous.

“They go to the positions once and if they survive, they never return. They either leave their positions, refuse to go into battle, or try to find a way to leave the army,” he added.

Unlike those who volunteered earlier in the war, many of the new recruits didn’t have a choice in entering the conflict. They were called up after Ukraine’s new mobilization law came into force in the spring and can’t leave legally until after the government introduces demobilization, unless they get special permission to do so.

Yet the discipline problems clearly began way before this. Ukraine went through an extremely difficult patch during last winter and spring. Months of delay in getting US military assistance into the country led to a critical ammunition shortage and a major slump in morale.

Multiple soldiers told CNN at the time that they would often find themselves in a good position, with a clear view of the approaching enemy and no artillery rounds to fire. Some spoke of feeling guilty for not being able to provide adequate cover for their infantry units.

“The days are long, they live in a dugout, on duty around the clock and if they can’t shoot, the Russians have an advantage, they hear them advancing and they know that if they had fired it wouldn’t have happened,” said Andryi Horetskyi, a Ukrainian military officer whose unit is now fighting in Chasiv Yar, another eastern frontline hot spot.

Serhiy Tsehotskiy, an officer with the 59th Separate Motorized Infantry Brigade, told CNN the unit tries to rotate soldiers in and out every three to four days. But drones, which have only increased in number over the course of the war, can make that too dangerous, forcing soldiers to stay put for longer. “The record is 20 days,” he said.

As the battlefield situation deteriorated, an increasing number of troops started to give up. In just the first four months of 2024, prosecutors launched criminal proceedings against almost 19,000 soldiers who either abandoned their posts or deserted, according to the Ukrainian parliament. More than a million Ukrainians serve in the country’s defense and security forces, although this number includes everyone, including people working in offices far away from the front lines.

It’s a staggering and – most likely – incomplete number. Several commanders told CNN that many officers would not report desertion and unauthorized absences, hoping instead to convince troops to return voluntarily, without facing punishment.

This approach became so common that Ukraine changed the law to decriminalize desertion and absence without leave, if committed for the first time.

Horetskyi told CNN that this move made sense. “Threats will only make things worse. A smart commander will delay threats, or even avoid them,” he said.

Pokrovsk has become the epicenter of the fight for Ukraine’s east. Russian forces have been inching towards the city for months, but their advances have sped up in recent weeks as Ukrainian defenses begin to crumble.

‘Everything feels the same’

Russian President Vladimir Putin has made it clear his goal is to gain control over the entirety of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions and taking over Pokrovsk, an important military and supply hub, would be a major step towards that objective.

It sits on a key road that connects it to other military cities in the area and a railroad that links it with Dnipro. The last major coking coal mine still under Kyiv’s control is also just to the west of the city, supplying coke to make steel – an indispensable wartime resource.

Ukrainian soldiers in the area paint a grim picture of the situation. Kyiv’s forces are clearly outnumbered and outgunned, with some commanders estimating there are 10 Russian soldiers to each Ukrainian.

But they also appear to be struggling with problems of their own making.

An officer from a brigade fighting in Pokrovsk, who asked for their name to be withheld for security reasons, told CNN that poor communication between different units is a major issue there.

There have even been cases of troops not disclosing the full battlefield picture to other units out of fear it would make them look bad, the officer said.

One battalion commander in northern Donetsk said his flank was recently left exposed to Russian attacks after soldiers from neighboring units abandoned their positions without reporting it.

The high number of different units that Kyiv has sent to the eastern front lines has caused communication problems, according to several rank-and-file soldiers who were until recently fighting in Pokrovsk.

One said it was not unheard of to have Ukrainian signal jammers affecting vital coordination and drone launches because units from different brigades didn’t communicate properly.

A group of sappers – or combat engineers – spoke to CNN near the border between Ukraine and Russia’s Kursk region, where they have been recently redeployed from just south of Pokrovsk.

Kyiv launched its surprise incursion into Kursk last month, taking Moscow by surprise and quickly advancing some 30 kilometers (19 miles) into Russian territory.

Ukraine’s leaders, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, said one of the goals of the operation was to prevent further attacks on northern Ukraine, while also showing Kyiv’s Western allies that, with the right support, the Ukrainian military can fight back and eventually win the war.

The operation also gave a major boost to an exhausted nation. Ukraine has been on the backfoot for most of the past year, enduring relentless attacks, blackouts and heartbreaking losses.

But the sappers were not too sure about the strategy. Having just finished a long mission over the border, they were slumped around a table outside a closed restaurant near the frontier, waiting for their car to turn up.

Chain smoking and trying to stay awake, they questioned why they were sent to Kursk when the eastern front line is in disarray.

“It felt weird entering Russia, because in this war we were supposed to defend our soil and our country, and now we’re fighting on the other country’s territory,” one of them said. CNN is not disclosing their identities because they were not authorized to speak to the media and due to the sensitive nature of their words.

All four have been fighting for more than two-and-half years and theirs is a tough job. As sappers, they spend days on the front lines, clearing mine fields, preparing defenses and conducting controlled explosions. They can find themselves under attack, ahead of even the first line of infantry, dragging around some 40 kilograms (88 pounds) of kit and four anti-tank mines, each weighing about 10 kilograms (22 pounds).

Speaking to CNN, they appeared completely exhausted. They had no rest between their Pokrovsk mission and the one in Kursk.

“It depends on each commander. Some units receive rotations and have time off, while others are just fighting non-stop, the whole system is not very fair,” one of the soldiers said. Asked if the advances in Kursk gave them the same boost as the rest of the nation, they remained skeptical.

“After three years of this, war, everything feels the same,” one of the men told CNN.

‘Rotten approach’

Speaking to CNN on Thursday, Ukraine’s Commander in Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi admitted low morale is still an issue and said raising it was “a very important part” of his job.

“The Kursk operation… significantly improved the morale of not only the military but the entire Ukrainian population,” he said.

He said he had been going to the front lines regularly to meet with the soldiers there and do what he could to make them feel better. “We understand each other no matter who I am talking to, whether it is an ordinary soldier, a rifleman, for example, or a brigade commander or a battalion commander… I know all the problems that our servicemen, soldiers, and officers experience. The front line is my life,” he said.

And Horetskyi – an officer specially trained to provide moral and psychological support to troops – is part of the plan to boost morale.

During recent leave in Kyiv, Horetskyi told CNN that while his role has existed for a while, it consisted mostly of paperwork. Now he spends a lot more time with his unit, checking in, making sure they are not burning out. Not that his help is always appreciated.

“They have this idea that I’m a shrink that will make them take thousands of tests and then tell them they are sick, so I try to break down the barriers,” he said, adding that little distractions can prevent a downward spiral.

In the monotony of war, any break from the routine can help, he said. This can include a wash in a real shower, a haircut or going for a swim in a lake. “It’s such a little thing, but it gets them out of the routine for half a day, it makes them happy, and they can return to their positions a bit more relaxed,” Horetskyi explained.

Even officers with many years of experience are finding the situation in the east difficult.

Some, like Dima, are transferring to posts away from the front lines. He said his decision to leave the battlefield was mostly down to disagreements with a new commander.

That, too, is increasingly common, several officers told CNN.

The ranks of Dima’s battalion grew thinner and thinner, until the unit disappeared.

They never received enough reinforcements, Dima says, something he blames squarely on the government and its reluctance to recruit more people.

The battalion suffered painful losses in the past year, fighting on multiple front lines before being sent to Pokrovsk without any rest. Dima saw so many of his men killed and wounded, he became numb.

Yet he told CNN he is determined to go back to the front lines, but will make one change first.

“I’ve now made the decision that I will stop getting attached to people emotionally. It’s a rotten approach, but it’s the most sensible one,” he said.

Now only if republicans could feel the same about cutting aid to Israel.

Now show how it's working out for Russian losses and morale.
And desertion.

Give them permission to hit Muscovites.
Bring the war home to them.
Let’s watch Moscow burn.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: ScreamingCockatoo,

quote:

Originally posted by ScreamingCockatoo:
Give them permission to hit Muscovites.
Bring the war home to them.
Let’s watch Moscow burn.

If Moscow starts to burn, Moscow would launch nukes at the US for enabling it. Why would you want that?

I think Putin would have either used a tactical nuke, or test fired one, by now - if he still had them.

My guess is he either no longer trusts his nukes, and feels his may be as compromised as the ChiComs were, or he no longer has them at all/maybe aside from the ones on the nuclear subs, and he cannot use those without getting nuked himself.

Honestly, there’s little of redeeming value about much of the Russian culture.

We should have gone in after 91, and “helped” like we did in Europe, until we restructured their culture.

We didn’t do a good enough job in Europe, but the process was started by Socialist Villains, and it still laid the foundations for them to either become civilized or go extinct.

Why Ukraine’s Kursk offensive has failed to distract Russia from Donbas push

Russian troops are inching ever close to Ukraine’s eastern city of Pokrovsk, a vital logistical hub for Kyiv’s outgunned and outnumbered forces, leading some analysts to question the wisdom of a Ukrainian lightning offensive on Russian soil that was intended to distract Moscow from its Donbas push.

https://www.france24.com/en/eu...sia-from-donbas-push

The Ukrainian army remains in control of more than 1,000 square kilometres of land in Russia’s Kursk region, almost a month into a brazen cross-border incursion that offered Kyiv’s forces a much-needed morale boost – and dealt Russian President Vladimir Putin a humiliating blow.

Along eastern Ukraine’s sprawling front line, however, the Russian army has been notching up territorial gains, cutting deeper towards the city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk province, a crucial supply and reinforcement hub for Ukraine’s frontline troops, and claiming the capture of a nearby village on Wednesday.

Moscow’s troops have moved to within 10 kilometres of the strategic city, the UK’s military intelligence reported on Monday as Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky conceded that the situation on the ground was “difficult”.

“Russian goals have not changed,” Zelensky told reporters, noting that the assault on Pokrovsk began long before Ukraine’s Kursk offensive. To some, his words amounted to an admission that Kyiv had failed to alter Moscow’s goals.



While the Kursk offensive did force Russia to redeploy troops from parts of the front line, analysts caution, those movements did not affect the battle for Pokrovsk.

In fact, “Russian operations are now solely concentrated in the Pokrovsk region,” said Gustav Gressel, a Ukraine war analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations, adding that Moscow’s forces were “kind of freezing other fronts”.

Before the Kursk offensive, “the Russians were advancing on seven fronts in the Donbas", added Huseyn Aliyev, a Ukraine war expert at the University of Glasgow. “And now it’s only Pokrovsk, while some troops elsewhere are being redeployed to Kursk.”

‘Strategically misguided’

Such manoeuvres suggest there has indeed been a “Kursk effect” in the Donbas. The trouble for Kyiv is that the effect is not being felt where it matters most.

Indeed, a Russian breakthrough in Pokrovsk “could force a broader Ukrainian retreat in the Donetsk region", warned Will Kingston-Cox, a Russia expert at the International Team for the Study of Security (ITSS) Verona, such is the town’s strategic importance.

A transport hub with a pre-war population of 50,000, many of whom have now fled, Pokrovsk is “an important supply hub, with several roads and rail lines converging there", said Veronika Poniscjakova, an international security expert at the University of Portsmouth who is closely monitoring the war in Ukraine.

If the city falls, “the Russians will have an open road to Kramatorsk and Sloviansk", added Aliyev, for whom Ukraine had virtually no chance of stopping Moscow’s advance in Pokrovsk region.

n fact, the invading army may not even need to occupy Pokrovsk to wreak havoc on Ukraine’s supply chain and deal a severe blow to its forces, argued Gressel.

“They don’t have to conquer the city physically to make logistics complicated for Ukraine,” he said. “As long as they go close enough to the city.”

Gressel noted that Ukraine’s lightning attack in Kursk region had drawn Kyiv’s “most mobile reserves” away from the Donbas, where they may have been better suited to defensive operations requiring an ability to rapidly fall back and regroup.

In that respect, “the Kursk incursion appears to have been strategically misguided”, said Kingston-Cox, describing the operation as a “symbolic victory” that has proved to be “overoptimistic” in terms of its desired impact on the Donbas.

Bargaining chip

Others have cast doubt on Ukraine’s ability to stem the Russian advance on Pokrovsk even if it hadn’t committed some of its best troops to the Kursk advance.

“I don’t think those units would have been capable of altering the balance of forces in the Donbas,” said military analyst Sim Tack, who has monitored the conflict since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Ukraine’s army leadership may have reasoned that “its troops had a better chance of securing victory in Kursk region than halting the Russian advance in Donbas", added Aliyev.

Assessing the success or failure of Ukraine’s surprise offensive should not be based solely on its repercussions on the eastern front, argued Tack, for whom the control of Russian territory gives Kyiv a “bargaining chip” for future negotiations.

Zelensky stated during an interview with NBC on Tuesday that Ukrainian forces were “conceptually” planning to hold territory in Kursk for an unspecified period of time, reiterating that the incursion was part of Ukraine’s “victory plan” to end the war on just terms and bring Russia to the negotiating table.

Whether that bargaining chip has any real value remains in doubt, cautioned Poniscjakova, noting that Putin has made clear his priority is completing the annexation of Ukraine’s Donetsk province, which Moscow claims as its own.

Putin has notably played down the significance of Ukraine’s incursion, the first on Russian soil since World War II, appearing in no rush to chase out the intruders while his forces press on with their assaults in eastern Ukraine.

His stance sends a message both to his domestic audience and to Kyiv, minimising the Russian army’s setbacks at home and stressing that Moscow will not give up on its plans for territorial conquest in Ukraine.

“By focusing on Donbas, Russia is making clear that it is not willing to make a lot of concessions in exchange for Kursk,” said Kingston-Cox. “That’s because Donetsk region is the main objective.”

So basically Pukin is ok with his subjects to be occupied by horrible, horrible bloodthirsty Nazis, who make lampshades out of their skins and perform inhumane experiments on them in bioWEAPONSlabs (remember these?), as long as he can grab some more moonscaped land from another country?



PS. Notice how another supposedly bright red line - occupation of his internationally-recognized land - has quietly dissolved, just like all other before it... Yet our dumb admin keeps scaring themselves into semi-paralisys and keeps imposing the ridiculous and arbitrary ROE on the AFU, prolonging the war which could've been over long ago.

quote:

Originally posted by ScreamingCockatoo:
Give them permission to hit Muscovites.
Bring the war home to them.
Let’s watch Moscow burn.

quote:

Originally posted by Aglifter:
Honestly, there’s little of redeeming value about much of the Russian culture.

I think war with these people is inevitable, and probably not because of them, but because of so many in our country harboring and espousing opinions like what I've quoted. It's unbelievable to me.

The notion that a war that extends deeper into Russia somehow won't blow back on the nation that not only made it possible but made it happen is astonishingly ignorant to the point of being outright stupid. And for every example one could give me of our "nation building" and "cultural restructuring" actually working out well, there are many examples of us trying that in the postwar era where it has gone horribly wrong for us. We really ought to start trying to work things out with other big nations ala the Trump doctrine instead of trying to manipulate and play spook and regime change games. This is exactly the kind of meddling that most nations and peoples don't respond well to. Saying "he probably doesn't have nukes that work, or else he would have used them by now" is wishful thinking at best - I don't even know where to start with that one, but it's a ridiculous assertion to gamble on.

'Cause...Russia, Russia, Russia!

So, for those with such strong (delusional?) opinions on the need to take the fight to the Russians, and the seeming willingness to fight this war to the last Ukrainian, are you willing to go yourself, because they will gladly take you! Having churned through nearly an entire generation of Ukrainian military age males, they're running out of willing (and unwilling!) able fighters. Perhaps you're willing to send your children, or your children's children...You know, for the cause!

For the record, I'm of Ukrainian heritage, and prolonging this war is not in the interest of Ukraine or Russia...Or ANYBODY for that matter!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: nhracecraft,

[QUOTE]Originally posted by echidna:
So basically Pukin is ok with his subjects to be occupied by horrible, horrible bloodthirsty Nazis, who make lampshades out of their skins and perform inhumane experiments on them in bioWEAPONSlabs (remember these?), as long as he can grab some more moonscaped land from another country?





The Ukrainians pulled their best troops and equipment from the defense of the Dombas to invade a portion of Russia that was rural and not well defended. The Ukrainians have been stopped dead in their tracks and have accomplished little other than occupying a small piece of rural land and getting a large majority of that equipment and personnel destroyed.

To keep occupying this area they have to keep pouring in more men, equipment and precious ammunition in a bid just to occupy land that has no strategic value to the overall war.

The Russians are laughing their ass off at this foolish adventure that is doomed to failure and is going nowhere. It is also hastening the collapse of the frontlines in Ukraine.

The area will one again fall into Russian control and the Ukrainians will have needlessly wasted precious war resources for a few weeks of positive headlines.

"Never interrupt your opponent when they are making a colossal mistake"

No doubt this excursion by Ukraine will go down in the history books of war as one of the great blunders of all times.

quote:

Originally posted by arabiancowboy:

quote:

Originally posted by ScreamingCockatoo:
Give them permission to hit Muscovites.
Bring the war home to them.
Let’s watch Moscow burn.

If Moscow starts to burn, Moscow would launch nukes at the US for enabling it. Why would you want that?

Russia won’t launch shit.
Their nukes are unmaintained and can be shot before they reach orbit.

Let’s watch Moscow burn.

quote:

Originally posted by ScreamingCockatoo:

quote:

Originally posted by arabiancowboy:

quote:

Originally posted by ScreamingCockatoo:
Give them permission to hit Muscovites.
Bring the war home to them.
Let’s watch Moscow burn.

If Moscow starts to burn, Moscow would launch nukes at the US for enabling it. Why would you want that?

Russia won’t launch shit.
Their nukes are unmaintained and can be shot before they reach orbit.

Let’s watch Moscow burn.

Do you not realize Russia has nuclear capable hypersonic missiles for which we have no defense?

They say they do. Eisenhower warned about the Russian boogey man being used as an excuse for endless weapon building.

Has any outside nation seen a demonstration of Russias hypersonic missiles?

I’m not supporting us going to war with Russia - but the West right now is using it as a way to decommission a bunch for 50+ year old weapons.


It’s a meat grinder for both of them. And I’m not a fan of how tied up Ukraine was/probably is in laundering money for the crony class in the U.S. - but dead Ukrainians is better than dead Americans - and dead patriotic Russians/a Russia that does not try to conquer people is good. Russian culture has always violently oppressive and failed and avaricious since the advent of the Romanovs.


(I have family in Kazakhstan. Russia has made noise about wanting Kazakhstan as well. As long as the sanctions are going and Kazakhstan is useful as a way to bypass them, Russia has less interest in conquest, but the mass influx of Russian nationals, who claim to be fleeing Putin, but still chatter about how great he is, as well as the influx of Africans, is cause for concern - Putin has been using African mercenaries in Ukraine.)

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8001gvp4dpo

Russia seems to be arresting people who were part of their hypersonic missile project.

quote:

Originally posted by Aglifter:
Has any outside nation seen a demonstration of Russias hypersonic missiles?

Well, they've been used in Ukraine, so I guess the Ukrainians have seen a 'demonstration'!

https://www.reuters.com/world/...hers-say-2024-02-12/

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:

quote:

Originally posted by ScreamingCockatoo:
Give them permission to hit Muscovites.
Bring the war home to them.
Let’s watch Moscow burn.

quote:

Originally posted by Aglifter:
Honestly, there’s little of redeeming value about much of the Russian culture.

I think war with these people is inevitable, and probably not because of them, but because of so many in our country harboring and espousing opinions like what I've quoted. It's unbelievable to me.

The notion that a war that extends deeper into Russia somehow won't blow back on the nation that not only made it possible but made it happen is astonishingly ignorant to the point of being outright stupid. And for every example one could give me of our "nation building" and "cultural restructuring" actually working out well, there are many examples of us trying that in the postwar era where it has gone horribly wrong for us. We really ought to start trying to work things out with other big nations ala the Trump doctrine instead of trying to manipulate and play spook and regime change games. This is exactly the kind of meddling that most nations and peoples don't respond well to. Saying "he probably doesn't have nukes that work, or else he would have used them by now" is wishful thinking at best - I don't even know where to start with that one, but it's a ridiculous assertion to gamble on.

This IMO is the post of the year.

Russia and China both have hypersonic missiles.

The United States is still trying to develop one.

Russia used an advanced hypersonic missile for the first time in recent strike, Ukraine claims

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/13...tl-hnk-ml/index.html


Ukraine claims it has evidence Russia fired an advanced hypersonic missile – one that experts say is almost impossible to shoot down – for the first time in the almost 2-year-old war.

The government-run Kyiv Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise said in a Telegram post that debris recovered after a February 7 attack on the Ukrainian capital pointed to the use of a Zircon hypersonic cruise missile by the Russian military.

“Markings on the parts and fragments, the identification of components and parts, and the features of the relevant type of weapon” point to the first-ever use of the Zircon in combat, said the institute, which is part of Ukraine’s Justice Ministry.

The Telegram post was accompanied by a video showing dozens of pieces of debris believed to be from the new missile.

Ukrainian authorities reported four people were killed and 38 others injured in Kyiv during the February 7 attacks, but no casualties have been directly attributed to the alleged Zircon missile.

There was also no mention of the launch platform for the missile, though previous reports in Russian state media say it has been deployed on a warship.

Experts say the Zircon, if it lives up to what the Russian government says about it, is a formidable weapon.

Its hypersonic speed makes it invulnerable to even the best Western missile defenses, like the Patriot, according to the United States-based Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance (MDAA).

The alliance says its speed has been put at Mach 8, or almost 9,900 kilometers per hour (6,138 mph). Hypersonic is defined as any speed above Mach 5 (3,836 mph).

“If that information is accurate, the Zircon missile would be the fastest in the world, making it nearly impossible to defend against due to its speed alone,” the alliance says on its website.

The site also points to the missile’s plasma cloud as another “valuable” feature.

“During flight, the missile is completely covered by a plasma cloud that absorbs any rays of radio frequencies and makes the missile invisible to radars. This allows the missile to remain undetected on its way to the target,” it says.

Additionally, the MDAA says the Zircon is “a maneuvering anti-ship hypersonic cruise missile” with a range of somewhere between 500 and 1,000 kilometers (310 to 620 miles).

When the Russian navy frigate Admiral Gorshkov set out on a combat mission last January, leader Vladimir Putin boasted about the Zircon missiles the ship was carrying.

“It has no analogues in any country in the world,” Putin said, according to a report from the state media agency TASS. “I am sure that such powerful weapons will reliably protect Russia from potential external threats and will help ensure the national interests of our country,” he added.

If Russia has introduced the new weapon into the conflict, it could mean trouble for a Ukrainian air defense already straining to repel Moscow’s aerial attacks.

For instance, in that February 7 attack in which the Zircon was allegedly used, three Iskander ballistic missiles and four Kh-22 cruise missiles fired by Russian forces evaded attempts to bring them down, data from Ukraine’s air force shows.

Although air defenses have brought down Iskander missiles in the past, it is believed that Ukraine has failed to intercept a single Kh-22 in almost two years of war. Speaking in December, Ukrainian Air Force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat said that Russia had fired almost 300 Kh-22s so far in the war.

Ukraine’s air defenses did have some success during the February 7 attack, bringing down 26 of 29 Kh-101, Kh-555 and Kh-55 type cruise missiles, all three Kalibr cruise missiles and 15 of 20 Shahed drones fired by Russia. But those are less-advanced than the Zircon.

Despite that, analysts caution not to exaggerate the impact the use of the Zircon could have on the war as a whole.

A key “consideration is Russia’s ability to produce and field a capability like Zircon at scale, especially as the program will compete for financial and other resources with priorities like rebuilding the Russian ground forces,” Sidharth Kaushal, research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, wrote last year after the Admiral Gorshkov allegedly deployed with Zircons aboard.

From 2022:

Russia's new hypersonic Tsirkon missile was fired from Norwegian sector of Barents Sea

https://thebarentsobserver.com...n-sector-barents-sea


From Bloomberg:

China Leads the US, Russia in Hypersonics, Pentagon Analyst Says

https://archive.ph/TLytu

China leads in developing, testing and deploying hypersonics, besting Russia as the US works to catch up on the new weapons that travel five times the speed of sound, a senior US defense intelligence analyst says.

The world’s “leading hypersonic arsenal” has resulted from 20 years of China’s efforts “to dramatically advance its development of conventional and nuclear-armed technologies and capabilities through intense and focused investment, development, testing and deployments,” Jeffery McCormick, senior intelligence analyst for the National Air and Space Intelligence Center, told a House Armed Services subcommittee Tuesday.

Russia has used the weapons in Ukraine but lags behind China in total inventory and support systems, McCormick said.
Despite its efforts, the US has yet to field a single hypersonic weapon. The Air Force and Army had goals of having them in 2022 and last year. Both services encountered testing difficulties that resulted in the Air Force shifting to a different weapon and the Army reinvigorating its test plan in fiscal 2025 while scaling back its fielding schedules.

Yet since 2018, the Pentagon has invested more than $12 billion in the development of hypersonic strike weapon systems “to provide diverse capabilities on land, at sea, and in the air,” said James Weber, the military’s principal director for hypersonics, in a statement to the panel.

Those wacky Russians!

https://x.com/Mrgunsngear/status/1832911990269890621