During the massive attack on October 31, the Russians used rockets that had not been released in Ukraine until now. The peculiarity of the detected cruise missiles was that they were equipped with a non-explosive part.
A representative of the Central Military-Scientific Department of the General Staff Colonel Mykola Danylyuk told about this at the briefing.
According to him, fragments of such rockets were found in the villages of Subich and Knyazhpil in Khmelnytskyi region and the village of Zastavne in Lviv region. The found fragments belong to the X-55 strategic cruise missile.
"This is a Soviet missile that is designed to launch strikes at strategic targets, the coordinates of which are known in advance. It flies at an extremely low altitude, at subsonic speed with the ability to go around the topography of the area," Danylyuk explains.
He noted that the change in tactics is due to several factors.
"First of all, it can be argued that the deliberate launch of these missiles is aimed at conducting demonstration actions, diverting the attention of the Ukrainian Air Defense Forces, and exhausting them. While modern Russian X-101 and 3M-14 missiles of the Caliber complex are aimed at critical infrastructure objects, residential areas, which increases their effectiveness. In other words, the launch of these missiles is aimed at exposing our air defense and exhausting it," Danylyuk noted.
At the same time, he drew attention to the fact that an equipped missile of a specific model (which was presented at the briefing) poses a significant threat of indiscriminate damage. The proof of this is the latest missile attack by the Russians from the X-55 on a residential building. It also indicates that the enemyʼs arsenal of cruise missiles has been exhausted.
The representative of the General Staff drew attention to the fact that the serial numbers of all detected X-55 missiles, without exception, were intentionally erased. This indicates that these may be the very missiles that Ukraine transferred to Russia in the 1990s.
- On November 17, Russia launched at least one X-55 cruise missile from its "nuclear arsenal" over Ukraine.