Russia Running Short on Modern Weaponry

Vadym Skirbitsky, Spokesperson of the Main Intelligence Agency of the Defense Ministry, says that more than half of all of Russia’s reserves of modern missiles have already been used by invaders. However, the intelligence spokesman said that the amount of older, Soviet missiles that Russia has left is substantial. 

Recent Russia attacks have increasingly relied on archaic, and far less accurate, Soviet missiles. Due to sanctions imposed by the West, many components needed for modern weapons, such as navigation systems, are not available to Moscow.

Russia has faced a number of technological setbacks due to the sanctions, something that Putin himself has even recently voiced. The lack of microchips is thought to be one of the largest headaches that Russia will face, soon, for its ailing technology industry.

The increased use of Soviet weapons has spurred fear that civilian losses will mount in Ukraine as the aged Soviet technology is known to fail, and to miss targets at a higher rate compared to modern weapons. Russia has claimed that recent missile strikes on civilian buildings, such as malls, was not intended to kill civilians. Some, including British military intelligence, has indicated that it was likely that the missile strikes on the civilian buildings was simply due to the outdated and inaccurate nature of Russian armaments.

The intelligence Spokesman commented that Ukraine’s Military intelligence was always keeping a close track on the quantity and quality of the weapons being used by Russia. The conclusion of the Agency was that “for high-precision weapons, as Russia claims, these are… the Iskander, Caliber systems, Kh-101, Kh-555 cruise missiles, then according to our calculations, to date, from 55% to 60% of those stocks that were before the war have been used in four months,”

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When the war first broke out, Russia’s use of Iskander missiles proved challenging for Ukraine – however, now due to a deficit of missiles, Russia is relying less on their use.

In place of the modern missiles, such as the Iskander, the intelligence Agency’s spokesman said that Moscow’s army had to turn to older weapons, such as BM-21 grad rockets, Smerch, Uragan, and others.

On Tuesday, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), William Burns, indicated that approximately 15,000 Russians had died in Ukraine and another 45,000 had been injured. The Director stated that he thought that Ukrainian losses were around the same, though possibly a little lower. In contrast, Ukrainian authorities have claimed that nearly 40,000 Russians have been killed during the five-month long invasion.