The Russian Aerospace Forces on January 24 for the primary time launched Kh-22 cruise missiles to strike the Ukrainain capital Kiev, with 12 reportedly fired towards targets within the metropolis. The missiles are carried by Tu-22M3 strategic bombers solely, with their 6,000 kilogram weights making them to massive to be successfully deployed by fighter-sized plane. The Kh-22 has been used extensively for the reason that outbreak of full scale hostilities in February 2022, due partially to the sheer measurement of the Soviet arsenals which Russiamanaged to maintain in storage in good situation, which made them available. The age of the missiles, that are nearing their decommissioning dates, means they’d quickly must be disposed of whatever the scenario in Ukraine, making it extremely price efficient to utilise them in fight.
Ukrainian Air Power Command spokesperson Yury Ignat beforehand singled out the capabilities of the Kh-22 cruise missile, noting that Ukrainain air defences had constantly been unable to intercept them. “I emphasise that it’s not possible to shoot down Kh-22 missiles with the means we’ve got in our arsenal,” he noticed, highlighting the missile’s sheer velocity as the explanation. By late 2023 Russian forces had in lower than two years fired roughly 300 Kh-22 missiles at targets throughout Ukraine, with Ukrainian air defences having didn’t intercept a single one.Though Ukrainian sources have since claimed profitable shootdowns, the veracity of those assertions stays in query, significantly contemplating each the historical past of claimed shootdowns that later proved to be false, and the constraints of air defence programs in service.
The Kh-22 first entered frontline service in 1962, however nonetheless has few rivals on the planet by way of flight efficiency. The missiles had been designed for anti-shipping roles to penetrate the multi layered air defences of U.S. Navy provider strike teams, and achieved this with irregular trajectories and a really excessive close to hypersonic velocity of Mach 4.6. Though Russia has expanded its capability for the manufacturing of a number of sorts of cruise and ballistic missile to a number of instances the degrees seen earlier than 2022, manufacturing however stays dwarfed by the scales seen within the Soviet period, that means as soon as Kh-22 shares are depleted, the nation is unlikely to discipline a equally massive arsenal of air-launched lengthy ranged cruise missiles once more.
Regardless of its strengths Kh-22’s suitability for land assault roles has however been referred to as into query, with its steering programs having been developed within the late Fifties to have the ability to dwelling in on enemy warships, which has restricted its capability to tell apart targets from floor muddle. Though Ukrainian forces might not have efficiently shot down any of the missiles, the Ukrainian Air Power did reach April 2024 in capturing down a Tu-22M3 bomber, which was credited by Western and Ukrainian sources to a Soviet S-200 air defence system. The S-200 system was notably not in service within the Ukrainian Air Power when open hostilities with Russia broke out in February 2022, however the programs are reported to have both been introduced out of storage or despatched as assist from Poland which nonetheless relied on the closely for its personal defence. The system’s 300 kilometre engagement vary has few rivals on the planet, and makes it supreme for focusing on massive excessive worth plane just like the Tu-22M3.
