Russia Repurposes Training Missiles As Ukraine Faces Critical Patriot Shortage

Russia is reportedly firing repurposed training missiles at Ukraine, allowing Moscow to sustain a record ballistic campaign while Kyiv struggles with dwindling stocks of U.S.-made Patriot interceptors.

The Russian military has begun deploying RM48U missiles, weapons originally intended to serve as targets during air defense training, in large numbers against Ukrainian targets, Reuters reported Friday, citing data compiled by military analysts at Ukraine’s Office of the Prosecutor General. The shift gives Moscow another source of ballistic weapons as Ukraine faces a severe shortage of the interceptors needed to defeat them.

“In the Ukraine conflict, both sides are in a desperate search for anything to hurl at the strategic targets of the other side,” Eric Heginbotham, a principal research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Security Studies Program and co-director of its Wargaming Lab, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Both remain highly vulnerable to such strikes.”

This is evidence that the Russians are running out of their more advanced munitions and have begun scraping the barrel for whatever they can find, one expert told the DCNF.

“They are running out of the ‘good stuff.’ It is not strategy; it is abysmal logistics and desperation. They are running out of everything,” Heritage Foundation visiting fellow and former Pentagon official Steven Bucci told the DCNF.

The Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence, U.S. European Command, the Pentagon and the Russian Ministry of Defense did not respond to requests for comment.

RM48Us accounted for more than half of the 228 ballistic and hypersonic missiles Russia fired at Ukraine during July and the first eight days of August, Reuters reported, citing the Ukrainian government data.

Russia launched 158 ballistic and hypersonic missiles during July alone, the highest monthly total recorded since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, according to the same data cited by Reuters. RM48Us accounted for 87 of those launches, while another 36 were fired during the first eight days of August.

“Drones are particularly cheap, and are therefore effective when deployed in mass. But ballistic missiles, like this thing, are more difficult to defend against,” Heginbotham told the DCNF. “Unless the Russians have or can come up with better guidance for the RM48U than it was initially equipped with, it will not be terribly effective at striking high-value targets. But it can hit cities, and it will absorb whatever ballistic missile defenses the Ukrainians have left.”

The weapons are launched from Russia’s S-400 air defense systems and travel on a high-speed ballistic trajectory, according to Defence Intelligence of Ukraine.

Ukrainian military experts assessed that the missiles miss their intended targets by roughly 300 meters on average and can spray metal fragments across a wide area when their warheads detonate, Reuters reported, citing prosecutors.

“Ukraine is also running low [on munitions], not because of poor logistics, but due to restricted capacity,” Bucci told the DCNF. “Of the two nations, Ukraine is much more likely to devise an effective workaround first.”

Ukrainian investigators blamed an RM48U for an Aug. 5 strike on a railway platform in the Brovary district near Kyiv that killed eight people waiting for a train, Reuters reported, citing Ukrainian authorities. Reuters said it could not independently verify the Ukrainian forensic findings.

Moscow’s increasing use of the weapon could also allow Russia to preserve more sophisticated missiles for future attacks, Sidharth Kaushal, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, told Reuters.

Russia fired just 38 Iskander missiles in July after launching more than 100 the previous month, Reuters reported, citing Ukrainian government data. The Iskander-M is a road-mobile Russian short-range ballistic missile capable of striking targets up to roughly 500 kilometers away, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ (CSIS) Missile Threat project.

Russia has also employed North Korean KN-23s, road-mobile short-range ballistic missiles that can fly on maneuvering, quasi-ballistic trajectories and reach roughly 690 kilometers, according to CSIS. North Korea has supplied the weapons to Russia for use against Ukraine, according to CSIS.

The Zircon is a Russian hypersonic cruise missile designed for launch from warships and submarines, with Moscow claiming a range of roughly 1,000 kilometers, according to CSIS.

Using the less capable RM48Us allows Moscow to conserve Iskanders, KN-23s and Zircons for a potentially heavier missile campaign during the winter, Sidharth Kaushal, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, told Reuters

Russia had a much larger stockpile of RM48Us than Iskanders by August, Reuters reported, citing the Institute for the Study of War. The think tank has also assessed that Moscow is expanding missile production rather than relying solely on weapons accumulated before the war.

Moscow also plans to more than double RM48U production from roughly 200 missiles in 2025 to 480 in 2026, according to Defence Intelligence of Ukraine.

The expanding Russian arsenal arrives as Ukraine has virtually exhausted its stock of U.S.-made Patriot interceptors, the only weapons currently in Kyiv’s arsenal capable of shooting down Russian ballistic missiles, according to Reuters. Washington is balancing Ukrainian demand against requirements for U.S. forces and other allies while working to expand production, a senior administration official told Reuters.

“Both sides are madly building factories that will produce still more offensive weapons, and both are trying to do so in plants that are underground, distant from the front, or otherwise difficult to attack, as those plants have themselves been important targets,” Heginbotham told the DCNF.

Trump has also pushed to expand Ukraine’s ability to produce Patriot interceptors itself rather than relying exclusively on Western stockpiles.

During the July 8 NATO summit in Ankara, Trump said the U.S. would grant Kyiv the right to manufacture Patriots and provide the know-how needed to do so, an initiative Zelenskyy later said he discussed substantively with Trump and was pursuing with Raytheon, according to the White House and the Ukrainian presidency.

The worsening air campaign has coincided with a sharp rise in civilian casualties. At least 437 civilians were killed and another 2,610 wounded in Ukraine during July, the highest monthly civilian death toll since May 2022, according to the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.

“For some missions, you need a particular kind of seeker head, but especially in the land-attack role, anything ballistic will do – including rocks if there were a cheap way to hurl them far enough,” Heginbotham told the DCNF.

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