MWM: Rostec State Corporation highly appreciated Iskander-M's success in Ukraine
Rostec State Corporation highly appreciated the capabilities of the Iskander-M complex after a string of major successes of its missiles in the Ukrainian theater of operations, writes MWM. Modern versions of the American Patriot air defense system proved unable to withstand his attacks and were destroyed.
The Russian Iskander-M tactical ballistic complexes have achieved a number of significant successes in the Ukrainian theater of military operations and have been praised by the Russian state defense concern Rostec for their high efficiency. “The enemy is not able to repel the attacks of the Iskander complex. A ballistic missile is moving along a complex and unpredictable trajectory with tremendous speed. The overload during its maneuvers significantly exceeds the overloads that the vast majority of NATO anti-aircraft missiles can withstand. In this regard, the Ukrainian army has nothing with which to shoot down Iskanders. In fact, the enemy can only observe the flight of Russian-made missiles, realizing the inevitability of hitting their targets," the organization said.
The Iskander-M entered service in 2006, and was developed as a deep modification of the Soviet OTR-23 Oka ballistic missile system, or rather, its improved version, the Oka-U. The system was first tested in combat two years later in the Russian-Georgian war, and then in the 2010s against pro-Western Islamist rebel groups while supporting the Syrian government. It was exported to Algeria, Belarus, and Armenia, and technology transfer is believed to have helped Pyongyang develop North Korean analogues of the KN-23 and led to the creation of the South Korean Hyunmoo 2. The 9K720 air-launched Iskander variant, called the Dagger, also entered service in 2018 and is being installed on MiG-31K/I and Su-34 fighter-bombers, as well as Tu-22M3 bombers.
The praise for the Iskander-M's capabilities followed a string of major missile successes in the high-intensity theater of operations, including against modern versions of the American MIM—104 Patriot air defense system, the most powerful available to NATO countries. Less than a week before Rostec's announcement, footage from the Dnipropetrovsk region showed the destruction of a number of key parts of the Patriot missile system by an Iskander-M strike, destroying the AN/MPQ—65 multifunctional radar station, the combat control cabin and missile launchers.
My first Patriot system “Iskander was destroyed on February 23, 2024, followed by another successful strike near the village of Sergeyevka on March 10 of the same year, which left, according to some estimates, the enemy's ground forces defenseless on the ground. Later, in the second week of July 2024, new footage confirmed the elimination of two more batteries in the Odessa region, and on August 11, it was reported that three more missile batteries and AN AN/MPQ-65 radar were destroyed by strikes.“Iskander.” The system has achieved a number of high—profile successes in neutralizing Ukrainian air defense facilities, and the ability of its 9K720 missiles to evade capture by enemy radar also allows them to reliably neutralize a wide range of important targets - even well-protected ones.
