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Comment by rasz | Hacker News Reader

Over 70 cruise missiles in multiple waves. Kh-101 at $13mil a pop makes it $1B just to target civilian population and infrastructure.

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An interesting article just under this one: https://mezha.media/en/2022/10/10/massive-attack-on-ukrainia...

45 out of 80 missiles shot down. I suspect they're not on a high alert right now away from the frontline, so that sounds like a good result. I wonder if I'm right or is the system mostly automated and "being ready" wouldn't make a difference.

This "system" mostly consists of men on duty with MANPADS. They either shoot the missile down or, if they don't manage to because it flies overhead too quickly, call the next guy in the direction it flew to, informing them that a missile is incoming for that direction (it will be a short time, 1-2 minutes). So the next guy will be fully prepared and knows where to look. That simple.

If missiles flew too high for MANPADS, they'd be very easily shot down by proper SAMs or fighters, they survive by flying under the radar.

Sounds like a pretty good system.

It is. It's also one Russians can't probably do anything about.

Well "automated" deserves some quotes. The main point was "can they be more ready and more efficient the next time", whether "automated" means automatic response, or something beeping at a person with a launcher, or more people with MANPADs.

It's not like "next time". This is not an unprecedented attack. Russians simply launched a week's worth of missiles in one hour. That's what they can produce + restore from Soviet stocks. There is no "escalation" in that sense, they simply caused "shock and awe" by concentrating everything they normally shoot in a week, in one salvo.

Here's a good video with an example (from today, I think): https://twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1579433935075147777

Yes that's about how it works. Around a 100 of these groups of 3-4 guys strategically placed all over Ukraine is enough to ensure ~50% losses of those missiles. Less if they are given a pickup truck so they can move ~10km laterally in ~10 min.

If so, provoking this Russian vengeance strike is the best feat of the Ukrainian army by a mile. If you can bleed 1 billion in military spending with the cost of a few deaths and an lorry filled with explosives, that's by far the most effective way to win a war: you will quickly bankrupt Russia while your own army is still able to fight.

Sounds much like the V2 rocket program used by Hitler to punish the British for their continental bombing incursions; it was largely irrelevant militarily but very expensive.

Do you know how much money ru gets from fuels alone? From eu region alone? Billions... This means ru can shot for days these kind of rockets and they will still be at profit... I really doubt Ukr is wants this kind of terror. Loosing civilians can be sometimes much worse compared to loosing troops

No one wants to see civilians die. But killing civilians doesn't change Ukrainian military strength at all.

That's why such an attack is stupid and barbaric. It changes nothing about the war and just manages to waste Russian money and kill innocent people.

If Russia's best response is really just attacking Universities and parks, it means that the Ukrainian army is invisible to Russia and Russia has no ability to strike the troops.

Russia seemingly just confirmed what we all were thinking, they have no ability to beat the Ukrainian army anymore, and have decided to simply attack civilians out of frustration.

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In contrast, the destruction of the Crimean bridge destroys one of two railroads that are supplying the Russian army in the south. Logistics for troop supplies are ruined.

The strategic implications are obvious, and Russia seemingly has no way to stop the Ukrainian southern counter-offensive... And now has roughly 1/2 of the military supplies moving forward.

Except they haven't only destroyed universities and parks. They have also hit the power plants in most of the cities. Kharkov was out of electricity in the morning, so were parts of other major cities. Now imagine electricity being out but in winter.

As I said earlier: it'd suck. But it wouldn't hamper the Ukrainian military at all.

Indeed, this is likely going to have the opposite effect. Ukrainians are going to ask NATO for even more weapons, such as anti-missile systems and better air defenses. Making the Ukrainian military even more powerful.

I really don't think that this terrorism of civilians is a good strategy at all. Everyone has accepted the fact that civilians are "soft targets" that are incredibly difficult (maybe impossible) to defend. We don't need a reminder from Russia for that fact.

All these attacks do is prove the depravity of the Russians. Not just of Putin, but also the military commanders who carried out and executed these attacks.

People in charge of Russia likely care little about Ukranian civillians and care deeply about appearing strong to Russian war supporters.

They do have other things they need to spend on.

Russia is a net food exporter, but probably they do not grow all they need. Smuggling needed foreign tech, and laundering money, has to be expensive. Paying off internal supporters might be a bigger drain.

Russia's major limitation is not in its exports. The sanctions are designed to prevent it from importing critical military technology that would allow it to replenish its weapons stocks. Apparently this is causing major problems for missile manufacturers. Eventually Russia will find ways to replace these suppliers (with likely inferior ones) but by they don't have time for that now.

With current sanctions, Russia can still earn money selling fuel to the EU, sure, but they have trouble spending it! They are already using more older missiles, having gone through the majority of their newer ones at the beginning of their invasion, when they thought it would be quick and easy.

They do have thousands of missiles left, although mostly the older, smaller ones as far as anyone can tell, and it's not easy for them to replace any of them.

in light of recent events, I see that Iran is helping them with some new tech

Over 85% of the components in rockets like Kalibr and other high accuracy cruise missiles are sourced outside Russia, much of it formerly coming from the West. While they may or may not have the money to pay for new missiles, Russia continues to have a difficult time replacing those losses. Russia had very large stockpiles of these missiles before the war, but they've chewed through them at a prodigious rate. From all estimates I've read, they are feeling the pinch, because their logistics are a mess on a good day and the sanctions make sustainment (particularly for high precision munitions) very challenging. Russian logistics were not designed for this type of long, drawn out campaign and it is showing on the battlefield.

And it has to spend billions to do anything including mantaining it's production capability. I doubt they are profiting from war. No war is profitable on the short term even when it goes according to plan which definitely isn't the case.

The same missile can carry a nuclear warhead.

I'm guessing the whole thing is a show that any of those missiles might have had a nuclear bomb in, and Ukraine would have very little chance of shooting it down, since they wouldn't know which one to aim at.

I'd guess it's a negotiating tactic... The actual targets are mostly irrelevant.

I'm curious, could they? I don't know anything about missiles, but it would seem logical that it takes a specific missile and detonation system to deliver a nuke. Could any missile delivery system carry a nuke?

These missiles specifically can; many can't.

OSINT community is monitoring ru nuclear infrastructure, no doubt US military is doing the same using mil sats. Im fairly confident US will know if ru are preparing to load nuclear warheads, and will pass this information (maybe, depending on US own agenda, how close to elections etc) just like they were sending constant escalating warnings (sadly ignored) in February.

I wouldn’t say the warnings in February were ignored. Sure they were publicly downplayed but it’s clear the Ukrainians had been preparing and they crushed the force that attempted to take Kyiv.

https://simpleflying.com/an-225-destruction-blame/

>"There was no decision to transfer the plane anywhere. You could do Rzeszów, you could do Leipzig. Why Leipzig? Because on January 26th, there was an appeal to management from the [NATO Support and Procurement Agency] via [Antonov Logistics (Germany)] for the relocation of all our aircraft. Flight personnel, personnel, spare parts, etc [could be transported] to Leipzig in light of a possible war. There was no answer to this inquiry...And as I said, there was no strong-willed decision to transfer [the aircraft] between February 15th and 23rd.

https://www.kyivpost.com/russias-war/biden-zelensky-ignored-...

>U.S. President Joe Biden said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ignored warnings that Russia would invade his country ahead of the February 24 aggression.

“I know a lot of people thought I was maybe exaggerating, but I knew, and we had data to sustain, he was going in off the border. There was no doubt. And Zelensky did not want to hear it, nor did a lot of people,” Biden said on Friday, June 10, during a political fundraiser in Los Angeles.

> “I know a lot of people thought I was maybe exaggerating, but I knew, and we had data to sustain, he was going in off the border. There was no doubt. And Zelensky did not want to hear it, nor did a lot of people,” Biden said on Friday, June 10, during a political fundraiser in Los Angeles.

Yet Ukrainian military surely took it time to escalate the shelling of Donetsk and Lugansk in February, as seen from OSCE reports.

https://www.osce.org/files/2022-02-19%20Daily%20Report.pdf?i...

>Yet Ukrainian military surely took it time to escalate the shelling of Donetsk and Lugansk in February, as seen from OSCE reports.

Obviously russians did it to create false sense of urgency in russian media.

Make up your mind or you will find Putin under your bed.

Another comment said about 45 of 80 were successfully intercepted, too.

The US doesn't know where they are..

>US military is doing the same using mil sats

And old-fashioned espionage.

We already know the capabilities of the russian army, why waste money to proof stuff already known?

Because Kyiv claimed to have air defences that could stop these attacks. This proves those air defences wouldn't protect them - the air defences only managed to defend against just over half, which is pretty bad odds if some of those were nuclear warheads.

If they shot down 50% of the missiles, they have 50% chance to take down the bomb. If the bomb is not destroyed, it may be returned.

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