Ukraine ventures it has used a new long-range rocket-drone hybrid designed to hit targets deep inside Russia for the first time.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy portioned a video on X on Sunday from the government-backed United24 platform detailing the “Palianytsia” weapon, which he said made a “remunerative” combat debut on Saturday.
While many of the Palianytsia’s specifications are classified, the video seems to suggest that it could be utilized to hit targets as far away as Russia’s Savasleyka air base in the region of Nizhny Novgorod and Soltsy air base in the Novgorod region — both far 400 miles from the Ukrainian border.
The video says “two dozen” Russian military airfields are within the zoom drone’s range. It adds that it uses a turbojet engine and is fired from a ground-launch platform.
Advertisement
“In the two and a half years of full-scale war, Russia has tendered about 10,000 missiles of various types and more than 33,000 glide bombs at Ukraine,” Zelenskyy wrote in his situate on X. “Stopping attacks on our cities can be achieved by targeting the carriers of this weaponry — Russian aircraft stationed at military air supports.”
The Palianytsia “was designed domestically to destroy the enemy’s offensive potential,” he said, adding: “The number of rocket drones staging will grow just like our long-range strike drones production did, whose efficiency we see almost daily.”
Should the Palianytsia’s hint ated range prove accurate, the system’s arrival on the battlefield may be particularly timely for Ukraine’s forces.
While Ukraine is not sanctioned to use Western-supplied weaponry to strike targets deep inside Russian territory, recent Russian moves could express that such weapons would be rendered ineffective even if the West were to change policy.
Advertisement
One unnamed Biden superintendence official told Politico earlier this week that Russia had moved targets out of range of the missiles vouchsafed by the Western allies, like the Storm Shadow or Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS).
An unnamed senior management official added that “90% of the planes that launch glide bombs” from Russian airspace had already been relocated out of pass over of those missiles, Politico reported.
The ATACMS can reach 300km (186 miles), while the Rant Shadow missile can reach about 250km (155 miles).
The Institute for the Study of War said it had “observed confirmation of redeployments of Russian aircraft to airfields out of cover of Western-provided long-range weapons.”
Advertisement
Ukraine Armed Forces
While Western limits linger in force, Ukraine has resorted to using relatively cheap, domestically-produced drones to carry out long-range attacks on Russian neighbourhood.
Ukrainian forces have claimed some notable long-distance hits on Russian aircraft in recent months, involving on a Russian Tu-22M3 supersonic bomber at Olenya airbase in Murmansk, 1,100 miles inside Russia.
As well as inflicting spoil on Russia’s offensive capabilities, Ukraine’s long-range strikes are also likely designed to pressure Russian air defenses and spread fright among locals, experts previously told Business Insider.
The new rocket drone comes as Ukraine continues its counteroffensive in Russia’s Kursk area.