Russia fires cruise missiles with nuclear warhead simulator at Ukraine
One of the two cruise missiles shot down over Kyiv on 17 November was equipped with a simulator of a nuclear warhead, writes Defense Express.
Source: Defense Express with reference to its own sources
Details: According to confidential sources, it was a Kh-55 cruise missile, which instead of a warhead had a block "bolted on" that acted as a simulator of a nuclear warhead.
That is, for this strike, the Russians took at least one Kh-55 from their "nuclear arsenal", "unscrewed" a nuclear warhead from this missile, and replaced it with a "blank shell", which was fired at Ukraine.
Defense Express explains that Russia usually used Kh-555 missiles for strikes on Ukraine. It is a "non-nuclear" modification of the Kh-55 missile, converted to a conventional warhead with "classic" explosives.
The Kh-55 is a Soviet missile that was originally developed as a carrier of nuclear weapons, for the so-called "special warhead" (this is how the Soviet and Russian military slang refers to a nuclear warhead).
Conventional and nuclear warheads are structurally different. 5:49
Defense Express assumes that the Russians removed the "special warhead" from the Kh-55 and could not load a conventional warhead there due to a lack of constructive capability, so they used the Kh-55 with a "blank shell" to strike.
According to experts, the fact that the Kh-55 missile from the "nuclear arsenal" was used indicates that the stock of cruise missiles in Russia is running out and reaching a critical level for the Kremlin.
Otherwise, the Russians deliberately used the Kh-55 with an "empty" simulator of a nuclear warhead to create the effect of overloading the air defence of Ukraine, the outlet adds. At the beginning of the war, the Russians used "consumables" to "overload" Ukraine’s air defence, for example, Soviet Tupolev Tu-243 drones rather than scarce missiles.
In particular, the Russian Federation is running out of stocks of the newer Kh-101 cruise missiles, designed for a conventional warhead (the variant for delivering nuclear weapons is designated Kh-102).
Defense Express’s confidential sources stated that during the attack on 15 November 2022, a Russian Kh-101 was shot down, which was manufactured in the third quarter of this year. Usually, "older" missiles are fired first, then newer ones are used.
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