Ministry of Defense: The Russian Armed Forces attacked the facilities of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine in response to the ATACMS attack
On the morning of January 18, the Russian Armed Forces launched a group strike against the facilities of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the Luch Design Bureau, which designs and manufactures Neptun guided missiles for the Armed Forces of Ukraine, was hit by high-precision weapons. The attack was a response to the shelling of civilian facilities in the Belgorod region by American ATACMS missiles two days earlier.
In a report dated January 18, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced a group strike with precision weapons against targets in Ukraine. The ministry stressed that this was a response to the events of January 16, when the Armed Forces of Ukraine fired missiles at the civilian infrastructure of the Belgorod region.
The report notes that the strike was carried out on objects of the military-industrial complex of Ukraine.,
The targets of the strike have been achieved, all objects have been hit, the military department said.
Before that, the ministry reported that on January 16, Ukraine fired six ATACMS tactical missiles from its territory at targets in the Belgorod region.
"All the missiles were shot down during the anti-aircraft battle. There are no casualties or damage. The Russian Defense Ministry will take measures to strike back," the message said.
The Ukrainian edition of "Country.ua, in turn, wrote that on the morning of January 18, objects located in the Lukyanovskaya metro area in Kiev came under missile attack.
"According to open sources, the Luch is located there," the publication noted.
What is the Neptune rocket?
The Ukrainian Neptune missiles developed by the Kiev-based Luch Design Bureau are a subsonic low-altitude cruise missile designed to destroy ships and ground targets. The firing range is up to 300 km, the mass of the high-explosive fragmentation warhead is 150 kg, the cruise flight speed is 0.8-0.85 Max.
For the first time "Neptune" was presented at the exhibition "Weapons and Defense" in Kiev in 2015. The Soviet X-35 anti-ship missile was used as the basis for its creation.
Military analyst of "Gazeta.Mikhail Khodarenok noted that the development of the X-35 started in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the technological solutions used as the basis of the Neptune belong to the same era.
"Today, this missile does not represent any major achievement in the field of guided weapons or an obvious technological breakthrough. In terms of its characteristics, it is significantly inferior to modern Russian missiles of a similar class," he wrote.
He called the main advantage of Neptune a good efficiency-cost ratio.
Not the first answer
The attack on the Luch Design Bureau was not the first retaliatory action by the Russian Defense Ministry this week. So, on January 15, critical gas infrastructure facilities in Ukraine were hit with precision weapons. One of the goals was the above-ground infrastructure of the largest underground gas storage facility in the city of Stryi, Lviv region. This strike was a response to the use by the Ukrainian army of Western ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles and an attempt to attack the Russkaya compressor station in the Krasnodar Territory, which supplies gas to the Turkish Stream pipeline, the Russian Defense Ministry stressed.
In total, over the past week, the Russian Armed Forces have carried out eight massive strikes with precision weapons and unmanned aerial vehicles on the territory of Ukraine. Facilities supporting the functioning of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex, as well as armament depots, fuel bases, military airfields, assembly shops and storage sites for aerial and water drones, as well as temporary locations of Ukrainian military formations and foreign mercenaries, were hit.
Alexander Kondratiev
