Russia Just Wasted a $3-Million Ballistic Missile on Grounded Ukrainian Hobby Planes
Ukraine’s 1970s drone shotguns are so vexing that Russia decided to blow them into bits with an Iskander missile. But an epic intel failure got in the way.
Russia aimed what may have been an Iskander missile at what appeared to be high-value targets—and missed. The drone-hunting plane or planes the Russians hoped to blow up weren’t there.
On or just before May 23, Russia’s strike complex—aerial or satellite intel cueing Russian missile strikes across Ukraine—identified what the Russian planners clearly believed were active Ukrainian warplanes at an airfield in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, 50 km from the front line in southern Ukraine.
A ballistic missile, potentially a $3-million Iskander missile—one of Russia’s best missiles—streaked down. The Russian missile strike turned the airfield into flames.