On July 4, 2023, the russians shelled the town of Pervomaisky in the Kharkiv region, as a result of which 43 Ukrainian civilians were injured, including 12 children. For this strike, the russian military used the R-500 cruise missile from the Iskander or Iskander-K short-range ballistic missile system, Ukraine’s Air Force Speaker, Yuriy Ignat, stated this on the air of the National telethon.
The 9М728/729 cruise missiles ofr the Iskander missile system, also known by the designations "Iskander-K" as well as P-500 are rare in russia. Approximate production rate of the missiles is only 1-2 units per month. But it is indicative that this is already the second case since the beginning of July that the occupiers used such a missile to fire at Eastern Ukraine.
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The previous case occurred on July 3, 2023, when the russian military directed the Iskander-K to the private sector of the town of Pokrovsk in Donetsk region. One person died, at least 8 residential buildings and other infrastructure were damaged, the National Police of the Donetsk region reported at the time.
It is significant that on the same day the Russian terrorists also used the Kh-31P anti-radar missile aimed at Kramatorsk. As a result of this shelling, according to the police, no one was injured.
This example can illustrate, in particular, how exactly the invaders could try to counteract the Ukrainian air defense in order to carry out a strike with a P-500 missile. Since Iskander-K is a subsonic cruise missile, which, although it is capable of flying at ultra-low altitudes and skirting the terrain, it is also vulnerable to air defense systems of all types, which are at the disposal of the Ukrainian Air Defense Forces.
For terroristic shelling of eastern Ukraine, the russians also used ballistic missiles against of Iskander missile system. If we rely on data from the National Police of the Donetsk region, then one rocket of this type was used by the russian military to attack the village of Serhiivka on June 30, 2023, as a result of which the school was destroyed, two Ukrainian civilians were killed, and another 6 were injured.
At the same time, according to detailed information from the Prosecutor General's Office, for the missile attack on Kramatorsk on June 27, 2023, the invaders used two ballistic missiles of the Iskander missile system, as a result of which the total number of dead Ukrainian civilians was 11, and about 60 were injured.
According to the data of the National Police of the Donetsk region, until now russian terrorists used the Iskander missile systems to attack the civil infrastructure of the region only on June 1, 4, and 22, 2023, for attacks on the Kharkiv region - only on May 28, 2023, when one of the villages of Kupiansk district of the region came under attack.
Such calculations allow us to generally say that the invaders intensified the use of the Iskander mobile short-range ballistic missile systems for terroristic attacks in the East of Ukraine. And this despite the fact that missiles for the Iskander systems can be called scarce for the russian army itself, since the estimated production volume is 1-2 cruise missiles and approximately 5 ballistic missiles for this system per month.
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