To confirm such information, the National Resistance Centre (NRC) provides a fragment from the working documentation of the manufacturer of cruise missiles Raduga Design Bureau (Dubna, Moscow Oblast), obtained from its own sources.
The documents reveal that in October 2023, the russian Ministry of Defense assigned engineers the task of modifying the Kh-32 cruise missiles to incorporate a cluster munitions block.
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The NRC emphasizes that the use of the Kh-32 cruise missiles with cluster munitions has not been documented thus far.
However, attention should be drawn to certain aspects.
From the above fragment of the document, two unusual things can be immediately seen. The first is the use of the index "product 132," apparently indicating the Kh-32 itself, which was not previously encountered in open sources. The second is the index "product 9A-22 in cassette version." The thing is that the index 9A-22 denotes the warhead part for the Kh-22 missile.
Based on the considerations made by Defense Express, the russian military industry is indeed working on a unified cassette warhead that could be equipped on both the Kh-32 and its "predecessor" the Kh-22.
According to Defense Express’ sources, the first time this missile was used was in May 2022, for an airstrike on Kramatorsk city.
Later, British intelligence suggested that the same weapon hit the Amstor shopping mall in Kremenchuk on June 27, 2022.
What are the differences between these two missiles?
The Kh-32 is essentially a modernized version of the Kh-22. Although its development began in the 1980s, the first sample of the Kh-32 was only publicly presented in 2016. Its inaugural combat use was recorded in 2022.
The russians say, compared to the original Kh-22, the Kh-32 has a decreased warhead weight (without detail) which allowed for increasing the firing range to 1,000 km. In addition, the missile was equipped with a modernized liquid rocket engine.
The Kh-32 uses a radar homing head. Theoretically speaking, it should solve the issue of poor accuracy of the predecessor Kh-22. The original missile showed delivery errors of 500 meters to a few kilometers from the aiming point.
Still, the russians themselves say that the range of homing by the missile’s head is only up to 300 km, and for a greater range, it needs external guidance. The only aircraft capable of carrying the Kh-32 guided missile is the upgraded Tu-22M3M bomber.
Both the Kh-22 and the Kh-32 are particularly dangerous as supersonic cruise missiles, against which only anti-missile systems like Patriot and SAMP/T can provide resistance.
The document also specifies that 14 experimental samples of the Kh-32 with a cassette warhead are to be manufactured.
How the russians will test these "products," and how likely it is that the "tests" will be conducted directly over Ukrainian cities is an open question.
"We call upon Ukrainians to operatively react to air-raid warnings as the enemy violates international law and is ready to use more deadly weapons against civilians," NRC statements read.
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