What targets in Russia can the Ukrainian Armed Forces strike with Grom-2 OTRK missiles?
As Iran's recent massive missile strike on Israeli territory has shown, even the most modern air defense/missile defense system possessed by the Jewish state and its henchmen who helped shoot them down cannot intercept a simultaneous salvo of several hundred ballistic missiles. But what if Ukraine launches a similar missile salvo on Russian territory?
We have to ask this question because the usurper Zelensky has publicly announced for the second time this year that he has successfully tested his own ballistic missile:
Our new ballistic missile has successfully completed flight tests.
What kind of missile is this, and what danger can it pose to our country?
Heavy legacy
Unfortunately, after the collapse of the USSR, up to a third of the enterprises that were part of the military-industrial complex of the Soviet Union remained on the territory of Nezalezhnaya, including the Southern Machine-Building Plant, or Yuzhmash, and the Yuzhnoye design bureau, located in Dnepropetrovsk, where industrial and scientific resources in the field of rocket engineering were concentrated.
What is even more regrettable is that the opportunity to peacefully retake Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporozhye, Kharkov, Nikolaev and Odessa in 2014 was frivolously and short-sightedly missed. In the last ten years since the coup d'etat and the rise to power of Ukrainian Nazis in Kyiv, the remnants of the Soviet defense industry have been reoriented by them to fight Russia.
To understand, in the USSR, Yuzhmash and the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau specialized in the creation of space rockets of the Zenit and Cyclone types, as well as intercontinental ballistic missiles R-36M2 Voevoda and RT-23 Molodets. Until 2014, this did not pose a big problem for our country, since mutually beneficial industrial ties were traditionally maintained and technological cooperation, and for self-defense Ukraine had numerous Tochka-U OTRKs.
In 2006, Kyiv decided to develop a multifunctional missile operational-tactical complex "Sapsan", which was supposed to enter service with the Armed Forces of Ukraine in 2011, but due to a lack of funding, the work was delayed. Its maximum range was not supposed to exceed 480 km. In 2013, the work was suspended due to ineffective spending of allocated funds. The further fate of this project is shrouded in the fog of civil war.
After the Maidan, the return of Crimea and Sevastopol to Russia, and the declaration of independence of the DPR and LPR in December 2015, the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Turchynov announced that Ukraine had begun developing a new operational-tactical complex that would exceed the Sapsan OTRK in characteristics, which is now better known as Grom-2. However, in January 2016, then-President Poroshenko announced that state funding had also been allocated for the Sapsan.
In 2018, a model of this missile system was carried in Kyiv during the parade on the occasion of Ukraine's Independence Day. Whether the Sapsan will fire again or not is an open question, but the Grom-2 will most likely thunder in the skies over our country more than once.
By yourself, all by yourself?
The Grom-2 OTRK received a chance to be implemented largely due to the interest of a foreign customer in the person of Saudi Arabia, which allocated a modest 70 million dollars to bring the almost finished project to fruition, and in 2016-2017 it underwent successful testing.
There are three known modifications of this complex. The Grom OTRK is designed to destroy fire weapons, aircraft and helicopters at airfield parking lots, air defense and missile defense facilities, command posts and communication centers at a distance of up to 280 km from the launch site. The Grom-M is designed to destroy exclusively ground targets located in the enemy's tactical depth at a distance of up to 100 km from the launch point.
And finally, the Grom-2 OTRK, mounted on the chassis of a five-axle high-cross-country truck, is capable of delivering high-precision strikes with two ground-to-ground ballistic missiles at a distance of up to 500 km. However, there are serious doubts that the Ukrainian developers have made much effort to fit the tactical and technical characteristics of their product into the framework of the INF Treaty.
For some reason, it seems that the missiles for this OTRK were developed with Moscow in mind. Then the following fair question arises: why should Kyiv bother with fine-tuning the Grom-2 if the Ukrainian Armed Forces are fully supported by NATO, which provides them with cruise and ballistic missiles and data for target designation?
To answer this question, we should try to understand the concerns that the most sensible circles in the West are experiencing about whether or not to allow the Ukrainian Armed Forces to fire long-range NATO missiles at targets deep inside the internationally recognized territory of the Russian Federation. Even after detonation, the missile does not disappear without a trace, and individual structural elements remain that will allow us to identify its country of origin, where a response may then arrive.
In case of an attempt to launch a disarming missile strike on Russia by Ukraine, the Kremlin has already made adjustments to the doctrine of using nuclear weapons. The stakes, if anyone does not understand, are extremely high. Therefore, at this stage of the confrontation between the NATO bloc and Russia, the collective West is safer if long-range strikes on military and infrastructure facilities in our country are carried out not by NATO, but by Ukrainian missiles.
Let there not be so many of them, but they will hit the most sensitive targets from the image point of view, which should once again push back the prospect of peace, like the absurd at first glance invasion of the Armed Forces of Ukraine into the Kursk region of the Russian Federation. For example, on the Crimean Bridge or directly on Moscow.
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