Ukraine developing cruise missiles for strikes on Russia

Russia is preparing strategic facilities and camouflaging its aircraft from possible attacks by modified Ukrainian Neptune anti-ship cruise missiles.

The Drive reported on this.

Russia is painting a specific camouflage pattern on its Tu-95MS strategic bombers based at the Engels-2 military airbase.

Given the high resolution of modern satellites, this camouflage has a clearly different purpose, and one of the options is to hide Russian warplanes in the infrared spectrum from Ukrainian cruise missiles.

Satellite photos of the bombers in the new camouflage appeared only a few days ago, at the end of July.

Modernization of the R-360 cruise missile

Back in April 2023, a Ukranian Defense Ministry official told The Drive on condition of anonymity that designers were working on modifying the Neptune anti-ship missile to hit land targets.

As part of the project, the adapted missile was to receive a new guidance system, which had not yet been developed at the beginning of the invasion. In particular, certain types of chips were needed to complete the system, but the system was close to completion.

The media reports that the new missile can be launched from the same launcher as before. It has a maximum range of 400 kilometers and a warhead weighing 350 kilograms (150 kilograms for the anti-ship version).

The official said that Ukraine has developed a GPS-based guidance system that directs the missile to a predetermined target. During the final stage of the flight, the missile’s infrared homing system searches for and captures the target based on a preloaded image. If the objects found do not match the specified target, the missile stops the attack.

It is worth noting that the basic design of the Neptune anti-ship missile is designed to fly at a maximum distance of 360 kilometers, which is not enough to strike targets such as the Engels-2 air base.

However, it is not difficult to increase the range of the missile. The missile is powered by an MS-400 aircraft turbojet engine that runs on liquid fuel (gasoline), so an extension of the range can be achieved by expanding the internal tanks or by adding another additional outboard tank.

Possible use of a new missile

In July 2023, the Ukrainian military destroyed several vehicles from the S-400 SAM system near the village of Olenivka on Cape Tarkhankut in Crimea.

After that the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Oleksii Danilov, said that a new Ukrainian missile had hit the Russian system, without specifying its name. At the same time, journalist Yuriy Butusov said that the strike was carried out with an R-360 Neptune anti-ship missile modified for land attack.

On Tuesday, August 29, the Russian Defense Ministry announced for the first time that a Neptune missile had been shot down. The Russian ministry confined itself to the fact of the missile being shot down, without specifying the location or conditions under which it was intercepted.

According to Butusov’s sources, the Neptune missile modification was developed after the start of the full-scale invasion, according to the decision of the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valerii Zaluzhny, on March 15, 2022.

The cruise missile was modernized in record-breaking time. The missile is currently being tested in combat conditions, one of which was apparently hitting targets in Crimea.