Russian precision-guided missiles are failing to achieve targets of up to 60 percent in Ukraine, three US officials with knowledge of the subject told Reuters, a possible explanation for the poor progress of the Russian invasion.
Since President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Russia has failed to achieve key goals such as neutralizing Ukraine’s air force despite its much larger armed forces.
U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, did not provide evidence to support the assessment and did not disclose what exactly led to the high failure rates of Russian missiles. Reuters could not independently verify the data.
Although Reuters could not determine what the typical failure rate for air-launched cruise missiles would be, two experts interviewed by Reuters said any failure rate of 20% or more would be considered high.
The Kremlin says what it calls a “special military operation” is being planned and that Russia will achieve all its goals. Russia’s Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to phone calls or written requests for comment.
In recent days, the Russian Ministry of Defense has praised the professionalism and missile technology of the armed forces. He says the allegations of failure are misleading propaganda being spread by Russia’s enemies, led by the United States.
U.S. defense officials told reporters this week that the Pentagon estimates that Russia has fired more than 1,100 missiles of all kinds since the start of the war. U.S. officials have not yet said how many of them hit their targets and how many failed. Citing US intelligence, three US officials said the United States estimated that Russia’s failure rate varied daily, depending on the type of missile fired and sometimes exceeding 50%. Two of them said that it reached up to 60%.
One of the officials said that the information showed that Russia’s cruise missiles had a failure rate of 20% to 60%, depending on the day.
Russia has used two types of cruise missiles in Ukraine, the Kh-555 and Kh-101, according to the Missile Defense Project of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Failures can include anything from launch failures to rocket explosion failure.
Rocket attacks were typical of the Russian invasion, with Russia announcing strikes against military targets, including weapons depots.
Source: Capital
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