What missiles can change the course of the war and why the West has not yet given them to Ukraine

The Ukrainian army already has in its arsenal weapons that can hit a distance of more than 100 kilometers, reaching Crimea, Pskov or Moscow. But this is still not enough to turn the tide of the war. What long-range weapons Ukraine already has and what missiles we can still get is below in the material.

HIMARS and its M270 counterpart became a kind of “game changer” for the Ukrainian army in the summer and fall of last year. They brilliantly destroyed enemy warehouses, concentrations of troops and equipment. This, on the one hand, helped stop the active advance of the Russians in the east. On the other hand, to liberate the majority of the territory of the Kharkov region and the right bank of the Dnieper in the Nikolaev and Kherson regions.

This weapon radically changed the situation at the front, but only at a specific stage of the war. The type of shells for these installations - GMLRS, which the Ukrainian army received from partners, is limited in firing range to 85 kilometers. And if last year HIMARS destroyed ammunition for Russian artillery, now they are destroying Russian artillery itself. They are now more difficult to reach enemy rear areas. The occupiers rebuilt their logistics away from the affected area of ​​these systems.

To imagine the scale: from Ukrainian positions to the border areas of the Luhansk region to the east - about 150 kilometers, from the right bank of the Kherson region to the south of Crimea - approximately 280, from the territory under our control in the Zaporozhye region to Kerch - approximately 250. Therefore, in order to knock out the enemy , our troops now need weapons that shoot further and stronger.

Ukrainian developments

Why is Ukraine asking for long-range weapons of the Western, and not the Soviet, type? Not because Western necessarily means more modern. The fact is that the nomenclatures that could now remain in the friendly countries of the former Warsaw Pact are perhaps Tochka-U, says Ivan Kirichevsky, an expert at the Defense Express information and consulting agency. The range of these complexes reaches 120 km. It is not known whether our partners handed them over to us or not, but more than once on social networks the occupiers complained that these missiles allegedly flew at them.

According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, which compiles the annual review The Military Balance, in 2021 the Ukrainian army had 90 Tochka launchers and 800 missiles for them. Again, it is not clear what condition they were in, but mass use of these complexes at the front on our part has not been recorded. It is known that on February 25, 2022, the Tochka attacked the Russian military airfield Millerovo in the Rostov region.

The situation with Soviet aircraft missiles is even worse - and in general in warehouses throughout Eastern Europe. As Kirichevsky explained, even before 2010, Ukraine had up to a hundred old Soviet Kh-59 missiles with a firing range of 45-110 kilometers, but then they were written off. The Russians fired such missiles at our oil depots in the spring of 2022.

Since the beginning of large-scale aggression, the Ukrainian military-industrial complex has been working on its own developments. However, representatives of military defense authorities, for obvious reasons, prefer to disclose a minimum of information about this or not disclose it at all. Even before the invasion, there were statements about the development of the Grom-2/Sapsan OTRK complex with ballistic missiles for a range of 500 kilometers, which could become the Ukrainian Iskander, but where this domestic project of ours has gone is still unknown.

The British Ministry of Defense noted in late August that the Ukrainian military could likely convert the S-200 anti-aircraft missiles and use them as a land-based ballistic missile. Such information was “walking” on the networks about two months before this message. For example, in July, the Russian command stated that during one of the attacks on the Crimean Bridge, exactly such a missile was launched. Its possible range of destruction remains a mystery; on various resources you can find estimates from 260 to 600 kilometers.

There was also a lot of information in open sources that our army used the Vilkha-M complex against Russians in the occupied territories. And according to The Warzone portal, Ukraine has allegedly resumed production of missiles for this system and is upgrading them to fire at a range of up to 150 kilometers.

This publication also wrote that our defense industry began to produce Neptune missiles for attacks on ground targets located within a radius of up to 400 kilometers. And it is likely that they have recently been tested in combat conditions. The anti-ship version of this missile, which hit the cruiser Moskva last spring, can destroy targets with a range of up to 300 kilometers.

A week ago, Vladimir Zelensky announced another version of Ukrainian long-range weapons. According to the president, the target was hit 700 kilometers away. Considering that such a message appeared the day after the attack on the airfield in the Russian Pskov, it can be assumed that we are talking about the successful use of domestic kamikaze drones. The first known “raid” of Ukrainian drones on Russian territory was the attacks on the Dyaghilevo and Engels strategic aviation airfields in December 2022. Then, as the Main Intelligence Directorate recently admitted, the strikes were carried out using redesigned Soviet Tu-141 Swift drones.

NYT, citing its own sources, wrote that Ukraine is developing several models of UAVs with a range of 1000 kilometers. Since we see news about drone attacks on Russia almost every day, it seems that these developments are progressing quite successfully.

“If we talk about attack drones, Ukraine is literally ahead of the whole world. This spring, Great Britain announced that it was going to transfer to us a batch of kamikaze drones for 200 kilometers, then this was perceived as a long-awaited event. It is not clear what happened to this story, but in the meantime we produced our own analogues of “martyrs”. Even the drone that flies to Moscow, codenamed “Beaver,” is better in its characteristics (which the Russians themselves admitted) than the Shahed-131,” said Kirichevsky.

In the end, it took Iran two decades to reach the technological level to develop the Shahed-136, and at least five to develop this drone itself. That is, Ukraine in this sense is moving even faster than one can imagine, the expert noted. However, attack drones by themselves are not enough, no matter how modern they are - neither their speed nor their payload can compare with modern long-range missiles.

Western weapons: what there is and what Ukraine can get

It is for these reasons that Ukraine has been negotiating with partners for many months to obtain Western missiles that could reach a range of more than 100 kilometers. Last year, the allies gave us anti-ship systems with Harpoon missiles and AGM 88 Harm anti-radar missiles. Both models can be called long-range, but they are not intended for firing at ground targets.

It seemed that the ice had broken when in February of this year the United States decided to transfer to us the GLSDB guided cruise bombs, a new development of Boeing and Saab Group. It can be launched from HIMARS and M270 launchers; they have the same warhead weight as the GMLRS, but have an increased range - up to 150 kilometers. Due to the fact that at that time the companies were just starting their production, Ukraine could receive these missiles no earlier than the fall. Moreover, in limited quantities, perhaps several dozen per month.

According to Kirichevsky, the process of mass production of GLSDB could be slowed down by the guidance system. These missiles were designed based on the GBU-39 aerial bomb (SDB), which is aimed at a target using a laser beam from an aircraft, while the GLSDB must be launched from a ground installation. And for this it was also necessary to come up with some technical solution.

Already in May it became known that Great Britain was transferring to us more powerful Storm Shadow/SCALP EG air-to-ground cruise missiles. And two months later, France announced the supply of similar weapons. The range of this Franco-British aircraft missile in the basic model can reach 560 km. But the Ukrainian army probably received an export version limited to 250-290 kilometers. The warhead of these missiles is about 450 kilograms. This is multiple times more than that of our attack UAVs (the weight of their combat charge does not exceed 75 kg, for “martyrs” - about 50) and GMLRS to HIMARS (approximately 90 kg).

“The French probably gave us 50-80 SCALP. In total, their army had about 400 such missiles. In fact, they transferred up to 20% of their reserves to us. Ten years ago, no one thought about the need to create large arsenals of such weapons, so there are simply few of them in the world. And the transfer of more weapons could already harm the country’s own defense capability. That’s why there is a so-called quota around the world - one country cannot transfer to another more than 25% of a certain type of weapon,” says military expert, reserve colonel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Sergei Grabsky.

Kirichevsky describes a similar situation with Storm Shadow missiles. According to him, they were manufactured in quantities of up to a thousand units. But some of it was used during the campaigns in Libya, Syria, and another batch was sold to Saudi Arabia. France and Great Britain could give us only a few dozen of these missiles.

Now Ukrainian politicians, military officers and diplomats are working to obtain from Germany another version of the aviation cruise missile – Taurus. A number of German media outlets previously wrote that the German Air Force had allegedly already agreed to the transfer of missiles, but Chancellor Olaf Scholz was still waiting for approval from the United States.

The total mass of the warhead in the Taurus is 480 kg. Range - more than 500 km, in export versions - 300-400. Like Storm Shadow and SCALP, this missile is capable of flying at very low altitudes, skirting terrain. This allows them to hide from air defense radars. The Bundeswehr has 600 Taurus units. However, Roderich Kiesewetter, a member of the Bundestag from the opposition Christian Democratic Union, noted that about 450 of these missiles are not ready for use and need to be modernized.

Kirichevsky notes that Taurus, Storm Shadow and SCALP were developed as part of a single European project called Apache back in the 1980s. The Europeans then did not want to purchase a cruise missile from the United States, but instead decided to develop their own.

“Storm Shadow and SCALP are two types of long-range air-launched missiles most common in Europe. Spain has several dozen Taurus, but they still need German permission to transfer them. Regarding Taurus, there is also another question - where to launch them. The standard carrier of the Taurus may be the Swedish Gripen. But it seems that the prospects for obtaining these fighters are even further ahead than the Taurus,” the source said.

The F-16 fighters, which we expect to receive in the first half of next year, are not designed to launch German missiles. In the end, in the event of a green light from Berlin, the outcome may be the same as with Storm Shadow and SCALP. To use these missiles, Ukrainian specialists “tuned” domestic Su-24s, using an adapter pylon from the Tornado strike aircraft. Together with the F-16, Ukraine can also receive a very wide range of long-range weapons. These are, for example, missiles AGM-158 (360 km), SLAM-R (up to 300 km) or AIM120C-8 (180 km).

In theory, Ukraine could initiate negotiations on obtaining sea-based SCALP Naval missiles with a range of 900 kilometers or a subsonic Tomahawk cruise missile. But these weapons require appropriate carriers - destroyers, frigates, submarines or cruisers - which we simply do not have.

Unlike European Taurus, Storm Shadow or SCALP, ATACMS does not require any additional carriers or reworking of existing ones. This missile is launched from the HIMARS and M270 complexes, which our soldiers have already mastered well. ATACMS is an American ballistic missile with a range of up to 300 km and a warhead weight of up to 560 kilograms, depending on the modification.

Washington is still quite reserved about the idea of ​​providing Ukraine with such weapons. Neither the White House nor the Pentagon provides a clear argument. However, different versions can be heard privately. Starting with the reluctance of the States to further aggravate relations with Russia. And ending with the fears of the manufacturer Lockheed Martin that their weapons will not prove to be effective enough in real combat conditions and this failure will bring down their shares. However, the most likely reason why ATACMS is still not being transferred to us is because there are really quite a few of them, says Kirichevsky. We are talking about one and a half thousand units of these missiles in the US arsenal.

“Although there may be another reason - they are very old. They have completed two standard service lives. They need to be repaired before they can be fired. But imagine the situation if the Americans came out and said: our ATACMS are very old, we are repairing them. This would damage their prestige as a global superpower - it’s better to talk about escalation management in order to save face,” the source adds.

If we talk about long-range ground-based missiles, then in fact there are no other suitable options in the West except ATACMS. That is why Ukraine is directing its efforts to obtain precisely these weapons from the United States. Kirichevsky explains that until 2019, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, concluded between the Soviet Union and the United States, was formally in force. Other players on the European continent were also guided by it. Under this agreement, countries pledged to cease production and eliminate their ground-based missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers.

“The agreement worked until the Russians built the Iskander-K with 1,500 kilometers and small corvettes for the Calibers. Currently, the majority of launch vehicles in the Russian fleet are small corvettes. These corvettes are also a way to bypass this INF Treaty, since such small corvettes can also move along Russia’s inland waterways, for example, along the Volga,” Kirichevsky noted.

It is the effect of this Treaty and the underestimation of threats that explains why the West has not worked on the production of land-based missiles and, in general, does not have many long-range weapons that it could offer. Therefore, Ukraine’s task for the foreseeable future is to seek those weapons that the allies can still potentially transfer, but in the meantime continue intensive work on its own projects for the longer term.