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Russia to Save Kalibr Cruise Missiles, But What For?

Loading Kalibr missiles on a russia's submarine in the temporarily occupied Crimea / Open source photo
Loading Kalibr missiles on a russia's submarine in the temporarily occupied Crimea / Open source photo

It seems that in order to disrupt western military aid by railway russia launches cruise missiles randomly in terms of chosen time

According to Ukraine’s operational reports as of May 31 the enemy did not strike the territory of Ukraine with any cruise missiles, such as X-55, X-101 or Kalibr. For the first time in this war russia didn’t use long-range cruise missiles.

However, yesterday the russians decided to break such an "operational pause" and last night, on June 1 between 22.45-22.55, four Kalibr cruise missiles struck the railway infrastructure in Sambir and Stryi districts in Lviv region.

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Loading Kalibr missiles on a russia's submarine in the temporarily occupied Crimea / Photo credit: Maxar satellite image

As a result of the impact, 5 people were injured, 18 passenger trains were delayed on the way and suburban trains between Lviv and Uzhhorod will not run on June 2 until all the damage is repaired.

This episode showed why russia decided to "save" long-range cruise missiles. Considering that the stockpiles of of high-precision weapons are possibly exhausted to 60-70% of previous stocks, russia decided to keep their cruise missiles for new railway assaults. As we see, the invaders hit railways once Ukraine’s allies announce a new package of weapons supply.

Russia to Save Kalibr Cruise Missiles, But What For?, Defense Express, war in Ukraine, Russian-Ukrainian war
Railway delivery of the Slovak S-300 complex to Ukraine in April 2022 / Open source photo

Taking into account the fact that yesterday russia’s missiles hit, as usual, a maximum of one or two infrastructure objects, which delays more than 10 passenger trains on one line.

This indicates that passenger trains, freight trains and trains with Western weapons travel on different routes and schedules.

Russian military can’t manage to guess the exact schedule and routes of the supplying weapons trains. Therefore, firing Ukraine’s railway at random might simply indicate their inability to disrupt the delivery of the latest weapons for the Armed Forces of Ukraine to the front lines.

Russia to Save Kalibr Cruise Missiles, But What For?, Defense Express, war in Ukraine, Russian-Ukrainian war
russia's Tu-95MSM bomber with X-101 cruise missiles / Illustrative photo from open sources
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