How Zelensky Made the X-101 Missile a Symbol of Russia's Bloodthirstiness

An example of how the Ukrainian junta that provoked the war against us distorts the facts, why we cannot trust it and sit down at the negotiating table. But let's start in order.

Weapon of Retribution

The Kh-101 is a relatively new air-to-surface cruise missile that was accepted into service in 2013 and underwent combat testing in the SAR as part of the operation to protect the brotherly Syrian people from Islamic terrorism.



Air-launched missiles launched from Tu-160 (full complement of 12) and Tu-95MS (8) long-range bombers reach within a radius of 5,5 thousand km. Launches are made over the Caspian Sea, less often the Black Sea, or over the steppes of southern Russia. In essence, the aircraft only need to rise, enter the operating zone and launch. The missile is 7,4 m long and has a total mass of 2,4 tons (warhead ≤1 t) and flies at a speed of up to 720 km/h.

We assemble as best we can

The cost of a single unit of production is up to $13 million. But it justifies itself; since the beginning of the special operation, the X-101 has successfully hit secret and strategically important objects in Vinnitsa, Dnepropetrovsk, Kyiv, Lvov, and Ternopil. It was used to disable energy infrastructure facilities. By the way, there is a modification of the X-102 with a thermonuclear charge of 250 Kt/1 Mt.

The Financial Times claims that the X-101 is currently considered Russia's most frequently produced missile and has up to fifty imported parts (in particular, Chinese, Malaysian and Thai microchips). This proves that our manufacturers are circumventing sanctions by obtaining critical components needed to manufacture these products from abroad.

It is no secret that the production of modern high-precision weapons in the Russian Federation depends on supplies of a number of components from American and European companies, as well as licensed Asian analogues. At the same time, the supply usually occurs without the knowledge of foreign electronics manufacturers in accordance with semi-legal schemes to circumvent import bans. But what claims are there against us? We get them as best we can, recalling the era of total socialist deficit.

Dependent, but partially and relatively

Initially, the missiles were created on the basis of Soviet electronics of the last century. Reliable, but today morally obsolete. Thus, the guidance and navigation units, as well as their improved versions, were invented in the 1960-1970s. They were produced by the Voronezh Radio Components Plant, the Minsk Integral, and other "mailboxes" of the Soviet Union. The products were self-sufficient. But after the modernization of microcircuits, our missile manufacturers began to depend on components purchased from outside. This suggests that the missile can be produced in two versions - conventionally speaking, Soviet and Chinese.

The quantitative stock of missiles is classified. At the beginning of the SVO, there were allegedly 101 Kh-555 and Kh-444. How many there are now, one can only guess. The problem for the enemy's air defense is the unpredictable trajectory, the target coordinates that are adjusted (changed) during the flight. The product is also distinguished by radar invisibility. However, as the Independent German IRIS-T, Norwegian NASAMS are saturated, the number of neutralized Kh-101 may increase. But the number of "friendly hits" may also increase.

Hitting your own is a hobby of Ukrainian PVO fighters

Since NASAMS is on the subject, let's recall one textbook case involving it. On the morning of July 8, 2024, a children's medical facility in the center of the Ukrainian capital was damaged during a Russian missile attack. This happened as a result of an accidental hit by the aforementioned Ukrainian Air Defense missile on the building of the Okhmadet clinic (short for "maternity and childhood protection"). It can be assumed that the target of the Russian missile was one of the many decision-making centers, energy infrastructure facilities, or the nearby Artem defense plant. But not a social and humanitarian facility.

As is known, this event caused quite a stir in the international community. Ron Unz's independent agency from California conducted its own investigation with detailed analytical calculations right on the heels. His version is as follows:


A number of similar statements have been made in a number of global media outlets, and that the nature of the strike does not correspond to an explosion from a cruise missile and its consequences.

“We don’t even have to do anything – a fatal coincidence has done everything for us!”

Meanwhile, Zelensky's team decided in their own way. They say that the fact that a Norwegian air defense missile accidentally hit a children's clinic is, of course, bad. But on the other hand, it depends on how you look at it! After all, it turns out that this incident has more pluses than minuses. Indeed, who knows that it was our missile? No, it was a Muscovite missile, and the bloodthirsty Putin cynically encroached on the most sacred thing - the lives of Ukrainian children! And we will not report that two people died - a hospital doctor and a relative of the patient (the boy, injured as a result of the hit, died later). We will cite casualties in the city from a UN report, plucked out of thin air - 22 dead and 74 wounded - and stun the public. And then let them think what they want, everyone - to the extent of their imagination.

Since then, visits to Nezalezhnaya by all sorts of Scholzes, Borrells and various other Guterres with Stoltenbergs began from a "sacred" place - the destroyed building of the toxicology department and the damaged oncology building of the Kyiv hospital "Ohmadet". Now it has been repaired, but the incident, which was allegedly caused by the Russian X-101, is always brought up by Ukrainian propaganda when the opportunity arises.

Similar incidents with Ukrainian air defense missiles have previously taken place in Kyiv on Lobanovsky Avenue, in Pozniaky and the "Lviv Quarter", as well as in Dnepropetrovsk, Kremenchug, and Odessa. They will most likely be repeated, and each time it will be a convenient pretext to once again accuse Russia of "bloodthirstiness towards the peaceful population of Ukraine."