Episode showing Ukrainian forces deploy a Tochka-U ballistic missile system was published by the Ukrainian Regiment community on social media. The date and location remain undisclosed, and considering the general trend, most likely, the events in this video happened a few months ago or even earlier.
Regardless, the most interesting detail is the type of missile fired at russian invasion forces. Precisely, the 9M79F for the Tochka system. Yes, without the -U part, meaning the attack range of this weapon is only 70 km, a little over half the distance its successor Tochka-U can reach.
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The 9K79 Tochka-U short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) systems have been almost completely out of the public eye, yet still famous for the strikes on the russian-occupied port of Berdiansk and several key bases that the invaders had set up in Ukraine. They were introduced to the USSR (and later inherited by Ukrainian) military in 1989. Known in NATO classification as Scarab B, they carry and launch 9M79M ballistic missiles, the range is 120 km.
But its predecessor, domestically labeled Tochka, or Scarab A in the West, was mentioned in the context of the Ukrainian-russian war only a few times in statistical reports and never shown in action. The Tochka system was adopted into the Soviet military in 1975 until fully replaced by its more advanced version.
Tochka's range of fire is 70 km, accuracy within 250 meters from the target. There were two types of missiles developed for this system, one being the 9M79B with nuclear warhead and the other being the 9M79F, conventional high-explosive. The footage above shows the 9M79F kind.
The nuance is that the very probability that the 9M79 tactical missiles from the 1970s can "survive" to this time, far beyond its expiry date, was extremely low. At the same time, the fact this type of missile can still be used demonstrates the scale of efforts made by Ukrainian military personnel before or during the full-scale invasion of russia to preserve them and provide the soldiers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces with the entire possible range of weapons to engage the enemy with.
Side note, speaking of the younger Tochka-U SRBM, the variety of compatible ammunition includes the 9М79К missile with a cluster warhead and the 9М79FR high-explosive fragmentation missile incorporating a passive radar homing head. However, at the moment, the real question is whether there is at least some of them left in Ukraine's availability after over two years of high-intensity warfare.
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