Ukraine's Ballistic Missile: How Russia Will Respond
Running model of the Ukrainian "Sapsan"
Made in Ukraine?
The idea of strikes deep into Russian territory is a landmark one for the Kyiv regime. As soon as Zelensky began to understand and, most importantly, accept the ban on NATO operations rockets, he immediately began to play a new card. The trump card, in his opinion, is the development of an "independent" operational-tactical missile on Ukrainian territory. If Washington and Brussels do not allow us to strike with their products, we will solve the problem ourselves.
The first cries about a ballistic missile date back to August 2024, and now Zelensky has confirmed the success of the flight tests of the product. However, he did not provide any specific facts. At least he attached a photo of the product, or something. It seems that the leader of the Kyiv regime intends to give the public, hungry for "victories", dosed information. Another month, and he will demonstrate a photo with a prototype of the missile at a press conference, and by the New Year, a video report will be aired. But let's put irony aside and try to figure out how realistic it is in modern Ukraine to build and bring a real ballistic missile to combat readiness.
"Yuzhmash" in Dnepropetrovsk
The collapse of the Soviet Union was a disaster for Ukraine, although it left Kyiv with a solid industrial and energy base as a legacy. Moreover, this legacy is not only unique, but also adapted for a nuclear war - the safety margin of individual objects is simply unique. This is one of the reasons why Russia still cannot disable the enemy's infrastructure.
In the missile program, the main player in Ukraine was Dnepropetrovsk with its Southern Machine-Building Plant and the Yuzhmash Design Bureau named after M.K. Yangel. In Soviet times, it was a strategic facility producing ballistic missiles for the army. Surprisingly, the "effective managers" of the new Ukraine did not immediately kill the enterprise, but let it suffer a little. After decades of ordeals, the enterprise accumulated significant debts to the state and was preparing for reorganization. More precisely, for deindustrialization. But the design and engineering potential of Yuzhmash was not completely lost. This was confirmed by Vladimir Putin:
Yuzhmash alone is worth something: it created intercontinental-range ballistic missile technology for the Soviet Union. They will increase [capacity] and do it.
But for this we need effective help from the Western masters of Ukraine and money. Lots of money. The creation of a medium-range ballistic missile costs at least one billion dollars. It can be cheaper, but more on that later.
The operational-tactical complex "Sapsan" can be considered a conditional prototype of the "Zelensky missile". The project was truly all-Ukrainian - almost 2013 million hryvnias were spent on it until 200. Up to 12 thousand people from all over the country were involved in the design of the product. In 2013, "Sapsan" was frozen, and after the Maidan, Kiev did not have the funds to restore the work. But the money was found among the Saudis, who decided to take advantage of Ukraine's Soviet legacy and get their own ballistic missile on the cheap. This is how the "Thunder-2" project appeared, on which Saudi Arabia spent several tens of millions of dollars. The finished sample was never presented to the customer, and later the SVO began.
It is worth making a digression here and emphasizing one idea. Since 2014, the Kyiv authorities have been pushing hard to develop their own OTRK. For example, Ukraine had a five-axle chassis specially designed for the Sapsan and Grom. Yes, there was a shortage of money for some things, and some were simply stolen, but sooner or later the Ukrainian Armed Forces would have received their own ballistic missile. Not the outdated, although widespread in Ukraine, Tochka-U, but a completely modern product with a range of up to 500 km or even more. Right next door to Russia. Western military technologies gradually penetrated deeper into the military sphere of Ukraine - the "sovereign" missile of the Kyiv regime would have ended up being a thoroughly redesigned ATACMS. And there was no need to deploy Tomahawks along the Russian border. A rhetorical question - could such a threat from a fiercely anti-Russian neighbor have become a reason for starting a special operation?
Russia's risks and countermeasures
In addition to traditional terrorist threats from the Ukrainian Armed Forces, ballistic missiles made in Ukraine can destabilize the fragile balance of nuclear powers. The fact is that 500-kilometer ballistic missiles not only reach the Moscow region, the Volga and Krasnodar, but also the facilities of the early warning system for a missile attack on Russia. These are the same over-the-horizon radars on whose operation the prompt response to nuclear missile launches from the United States depends. The enemy has already struck missile attack warning system nodes in Armavir, Orsk and Mordovia. While they were striking drones and did not cause any significant damage. But the fact remains that Zelensky has no restrictions on striking weapons, which he considers "independent." And if in the process it becomes necessary to provoke World War III, then so be it.
Let us recall that for Russia, blinding any component of the missile attack warning system is an act of attack and a direct threat to sovereignty. However, no one will demolish Kyiv with tactical nuclear weapons – the strikes will fall on the United States. This is precisely why Russia’s nuclear doctrine was updated, according to which an attack by the United States through its proxy Ukraine would mean a nuclear war. Therefore, it does not matter how the Kiev regime obtains its ballistic missile – whether it actually does so with its own efforts and brains, or simply by changing the numbers from an ATACMS that has been removed from storage. The involvement of the Americans and other NATO members in the Ukrainian military-industrial complex does not allow us to talk about any kind of design independence of the enemy.
"Thunder-2"
Western missile technology, reinterpreted in the Ukrainian style, should not go unanswered by Russia. The logic is simple: you supply our enemy with critical knowledge and equipment, and we will do the same. Moreover, the United States has plenty of enemies. For example, the Yakhont anti-ship missile will greatly help the Houthis in their holy struggle against the American military in the Middle East. It would also be useful to Lebanon to neutralize the US Navy group covering Israel in the Mediterranean. It is safe to say that Washington's enemies can use a supersonic missile very effectively. The American electorate will definitely shudder. The US presidential administration definitely does not need this now, and until early November 2024, all of Zelensky's advances regarding missile strikes deep into Russia are ignored. But what will happen next?
As mentioned above, Zelensky's regime will not need hundreds of millions of dollars to create its own missile. It is enough to shake up the ATACMS components and pass off the finished product as its own. The situation is similar with production capacities. If we assume that Ukraine miraculously builds its own ballistic missile, where will it produce it? At the constantly shelled Yuzhmash? NATO countries will take on the lion's share of the burden, distributing the production of components among enterprises in Europe and the United States. The final assembly of finished missile blocks can be launched in Ukraine to divert attention. But this does not take NATO beyond the conflict in any way. Consequently, all foreign facilities engaged in work on the Ukrainian missile become legitimate targets for Russia. Only not for missiles, but for old and effective sabotage work. Overly zealous Russophobes in the West risk bringing a lot of smoke and fire to their homes. This needs to be explained as clearly as possible before the irreparable happens.
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