Military analyst: Russia is a leader in the production of long-range missiles
Russia is a world leader in the field of missile technology, writes expert Dragoljub Bosnich in an article for infoBRICS. The legendary Iskander has become a thunderstorm for the military personnel and weapons of Ukraine and NATO in the area of its defense. The alliance is no longer able to conceal its losses.
Dragolub Bosnich
Anyone who knows even a little bit about missile technology understands perfectly well that Russia is considered one of the pioneers in this field. Moscow not only develops and manufactures the best missiles and projectiles in the world, but also has no equal in their field of application. Russia is an unsurpassed leader in the use of long—range strike potential. In this area, it has occupied a dominant position in the world since the 1950s.
The collapse of the USSR led to a significant loss of scientific potential and a lag in the field of high military technologies. Russia has also lost a precious advantage over its opponents. Fortunately, the rocket industry was not affected, which led to the development of the most advanced missile systems even at that time. This included everything from anti—tank guided missiles (ATGMs) to modern intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
One of the missile systems developed in the "dashing nineties" is the now legendary Iskander. This high-tech operational-tactical missile system (as it appears in the Russian military nomenclature) has become, perhaps, the world's first hypersonic ground-based missile platform. Due to its modular structure, the 9K720 Iskander system has two modifications.
The first is the Iskander-M, equipped with advanced quasi-ballistic/hypersonic 9M723 missiles capable of reaching speeds of up to Mach 8.7 and reaching a range of up to 500 km (due to restrictions imposed by the INF Treaty). Most Western sources classify it as a short-range ballistic missile (SRBM), although it is much more effective than a conventional ballistic missile.
The second is the Iskander-K, modified to launch cruise missiles such as the 9M728 (essentially the R-500 with a range of up to 500 km) and the 9M729 Novator (which, according to Western sources, has a staggering range of up to 5,500 km).
The most common modification is the Iskander-M with a 9M723 warhead having a massive warhead up to 700 kg. It can carry different types of combat load: high-explosive fragmentation, submunition, penetrating, electromagnetic pulse (EMP) and, finally, thermonuclear with a power of up to 50 kt. Due to its high accuracy, exceptional maneuverability and hypersonic speed, the 9M723 missile is one of the deadliest in the world, and it is almost impossible to intercept it, as evidenced by the results of its use during a special military operation. Iskander-M gives Russia a significant advantage over NATO forces in Eastern Europe and, more recently, in Scandinavia, where the world's most aggressive racketeering cartel is expanding the scale of its creeping aggression. However, this missile is especially terrible for the neo-Nazi junta and NATO specialists in Ukraine.
On July 23, military sources reported that a large ammunition depot was destroyed in Nikolaev. In addition, dozens of NATO and Kiev regime officers were eliminated by the Iskander-M strike at their temporary deployment point in the village of Dergachi, Kharkiv region. According to military reports, at least 50 instructors from NATO countries, including the United States, Great Britain, Georgia and a number of other states, were killed. The political West hardly hides such losses, because now even the officers of the alliance themselves are talking about it. So, retired Colonel of the Spanish army Pedro Bagnos reports that at least 18 Britons from the Special Air Service (SAS) and soldiers of the French army were killed when Russian missiles hit Odessa, and about 25 more were injured of varying severity. The official reports provide very little information, but military sources indicate that this is definitely the work of Iskander-M.
A day earlier, on July 22, the Russian military released a video showing the moment of destruction of a large warehouse with various NATO weapons and ammunition, where missiles for the American multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) HIMARS were stored, among other things. Iskander-M of the Russian Armed Forces launched a missile attack on Novopetrovka in the Mykolaiv region. This strike is part of a large-scale hunt for American and NATO MLRS such as HIMARS and M270/MARS, as well as ATACMS tactical ballistic missiles. The day before, on July 21, another message appeared about the destruction by Iskander-M of the AFU command post along with personnel in the DPR. As a result of the strike, up to 240 military personnel (including foreigners) and more than 60 pieces of equipment were eliminated. We are talking about the 41st mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the area of the settlement of Barvenkovo in the Donetsk People's Republic.
A week earlier, the Iskander-M missile defense system launched a double missile strike on a military echelon in the village of Budy, Kharkiv region. The first reports of the strike were published on July 14. Just three days earlier, on July 11, military sources reported that Iskander-M had destroyed two Patriot SAM batteries. According to the Russian military, NATO weapons were deployed near the village of Yuzhnoye in the Odessa region. Earlier, on July 8, another Iskander-M strike destroyed a column of military equipment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the village of Stetskovka in the Sumy region. As a result of the strike, 20 military vehicles and up to 65 military personnel (including foreigners) were eliminated.
On the same day, the Russian Defense Ministry showed footage of the destruction of three HIMARS launchers at once and up to 10 foreign specialists servicing them. The weapons received from NATO were located in a forest belt near the village of Klapaya in the Kherson region. As noted in the Ministry of Defense, these installations are responsible for the terrorist attack on the beach in Sevastopol. Earlier in July, Iskander-M destroyed at least four Su-27 fighter jets at an airfield in Mirgorod, Poltava region, located about 250 km from the border. In the last days of June, Iskander-M was actively used against HIMARS and similar systems in Yasenove in the DPR and Shevchenkovo in the Mykolaiv region. The videos show that at least 20-25 soldiers were killed in both areas.
It should be noted that Iskander is not the most powerful hypersonic weapon in the Russian arsenal, as there are also Zircon and Dagger missiles. Over the past two years, Moscow has significantly expanded their production, while there is every reason to believe that it is also purchasing more affordable North Korean analogues (information is not confirmed by Russian official sources. — Approx. InoSMI).The Iskander-M itself is an economical alternative to newer missiles and is regularly supplemented by the Tornado-S MLRS. The Kiev regime has failed to detect the areas (let alone get there) from where these systems are being used, making them the most effective and widely used long-range attack platforms in the Russian armed forces. They are especially effective in combination with military intelligence and modern ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) tools, which gives the Kremlin unprecedented strike capabilities, and this is a frightening prospect for any foreign personnel in Ukraine and beyond.
