“The ‘Rubezh’ strike is a demonstration for the West that will not be regular” – Serhiy Zgurets
21 November 2024 16:59
EXCLUSIVE
For the first time, Russia used the Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile against Ukraine, hitting the city of Dnipro. This event caused a significant resonance both because of the missile’s technical characteristics and its possible symbolic meaning. After all, this missile is capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova even put on a show with her phone’s speaker “accidentally” turned on to draw more attention to the event. "Komersant Ukrainian" asked military expert Sergiy Zgurts to share his thoughts on this use of the missile by the Russians. What are you talking about? Is this a sign that Russia is unleashing a new level of weaponry in the war against Ukraine, or is it a symbolic action aimed at intimidating Ukraine’s Western partners?
Technical characteristics and features of the missile
According to Serhiy Zgurets, the Rubizh is a fairly old development that was frozen in 2017 due to technical and production limitations. It was created as a medium-range missile, and its design uses components of the Yars intercontinental missile.
“The missile was created in a simple way: we took the first and third stages from the Yars ballistic missile, which is, relatively speaking, Russia’s main intercontinental missile today. In its mobile version, Rubizh resembles a shortened version of Yars with a similar warhead,”
– explains the expert.
According to him, the developers declared a range of up to 6,000 kilometers, but in fact it is up to 5,000. This was done in order not to formally violate the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), which was still in force at the time.
Are the goals of the launch military or political?
The expert believes that the main purpose of the strike was to test the missile’s combat characteristics:
“It seems to me that they were just using weight and size mock-ups when they struck the Dnipro. You can see this on the video, because there are no excessive additional effects. I think this launch was aimed at achieving several goals: testing technical elements and demonstrating capabilities,”
– zgurets believes.
At the same time, he suggests that the political aspect of this attack is no less important:
“This is not only about intimidating our population and influencing our military leadership. It is also a signal to the West, particularly the United States, because the Russians may be hinting at the possibility of a strike on the new missile defense base in Poland.”
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Is Ukraine capable of shooting down such missiles?
It is almost impossible to shoot down the Rubezh with Patriot systems due to its high speed. According to the expert, the missile’s speed reaches 8 km/s, while Patriot’s capabilities are limited to 5 km/s.
“Patriot is not capable of shooting down such missiles. However, this can be done by the American THAAD system, which is designed to work with such ballistic targets. Unfortunately, we have not yet been provided with it. Instead, Poland has recently announced the launch of a new missile defense base that can theoretically work against such missiles,”
– says the expert. In this context, Ukraine’s appeals to the West to shoot down Russian missiles over our country once again come to mind.
“Rubizh is not a mass-produced weapon and may never become one
The expert doubts that Russia will be able to launch mass production of these missiles due to its limited production capabilities.
“This is not a serial product. I think it’s the remnants of the 2017 batch, when they froze this missile in favor of the Iskander-K. The problem is that the stages of the Rubizh missile are produced on the same lines as the Yarsi. And Russia’s priority is to increase the number of Yars. In 20 years, they have produced only about 170 missiles, which is a very low rate. The production of Rubes will simply slow down the already slow process,”
– he believes.
In addition, the high cost of the missile – about $80 million – makes it economically unprofitable for mass use, the expert adds.
Demonstration of capabilities or a real threat?
Thus, the launch of the Rubizh missile, according to the expert, is more of a demonstrative and experimental act aimed at testing technical capabilities and political intimidation than at achieving real military goals.
“The missile is not a production missile, we do not know the technical indicators for sure, we cannot shoot down Patriot, but there are very few such missiles in Russia. These are the remnants of the 2017 batch. In the future, the priority for them will remain Yars, not Rubizh,
– sergiy Zgurets summarizes.
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