Russia is upgrading one of its most powerful supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles to allow President Vladimir Putin’s forces to strike Ukraine with greater accuracy, Russian state-run media reported.
Moscow’s P-800 Oniks, which in its export form is known as the Yakhont, will soon receive new active homing devices, allowing the military to strike Ukrainian ground targets with greater precision, a source in the Russian defense industry told news agency Tass.
The missile, which can be fired by Bastion coastal-defense missile systems, surface ships and submarines, has a range of about 186 miles and travels at speeds of up to roughly 1,900 mph, making it supersonic. It has been used regularly by Russia’s military in the ongoing war against Ukraine.
“Initially designed as anti-ship missiles, Oniks received the capacity of striking the adversary’s ground-based facilities with greater precision due to its new active homing device,” the source said.
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Russia’s military is also working on making the anti-ship cruise missiles “invulnerable to Ukrainian electronic warfare equipment,” another source told Tass.
Newsweek couldn’t independently verify the report and has contacted the Russian Defense Ministry for comment by email.
The upgrade could pose challenges for Ukraine’s forces as Kyiv is reported to be facing shortages of ammunition. In February, two U.S. officials told ABC News on condition of anonymity that the shortages could become “catastrophic” by late March.
“The juncture starts now and it just keeps getting worse progressively through the spring and into summer. So, this time period that we are entering is a critical time period,” a senior U.S. defense official told the network.
A $60 billion U.S. aid package requested by President Joe Biden is stalled in the GOP-controlled House of Representatives.
Taking advantage of the situation, Russia has been making gradual gains in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. After seizing town of Avdiivka in February, Russia said its forces captured a number of villages in the region, including Nevelske, Orlivka, Krasnoye and the Ivanivske settlement.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) a U.S.-based think tank, said in an analysis on March 14 that Ukrainian shortages of ammunition and other war materiel “may be making the current Ukrainian front line more fragile than the relatively slow Russian advances in various sectors would indicate.”
“Ukrainian prioritization of the sectors most threatened by intensive Russian offensive operations could create vulnerabilities elsewhere that Russian forces may be able to exploit to make sudden and surprising advances if Ukrainian supplies continue to dwindle,” the think tank said.
“Russia’s retention of the theater-wide initiative increases the risks of such developments by letting the Russian military command choose to increase or decrease operations anywhere along the line almost at will.”
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.