Russia Repurposes Training Missiles As Ukraine Faces Critical Patriot Shortage

Russia is reportedly firing repurposed training missiles at Ukraine, allowing Moscow to sustain a record ballistic campaign while Kyiv struggles with dwindling stocks of U.S.-made Patriot interceptors.

The Russian military has begun deploying RM48U missiles, weapons originally intended to serve as targets during air defense training, in large numbers against Ukrainian targets, Reuters reported Friday, citing data compiled by military analysts at Ukraine’s Office of the Prosecutor General. The shift gives Moscow another source of ballistic weapons as Ukraine faces a severe shortage of the interceptors needed to defeat them.

“In the Ukraine conflict, both sides are in a desperate search for anything to hurl at the strategic targets of the other side,” Eric Heginbotham, a principal research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Security Studies Program and co-director of its Wargaming Lab, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Both remain highly vulnerable to such strikes.”

This is evidence that the Russians are running out of their more advanced munitions and have begun scraping the barrel for whatever they can find, one expert told the DCNF.

“They are running out of the ‘good stuff.’ It is not strategy; it is abysmal logistics and desperation. They are running out of everything,” Heritage Foundation visiting fellow and former Pentagon official Steven Bucci told the DCNF.

The Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence, U.S. European Command, the Pentagon and the Russian Ministry of Defense did not respond to requests for comment.

RM48Us accounted for more than half of the 228 ballistic and hypersonic missiles Russia fired at Ukraine during July and the first eight days of August, Reuters reported, citing the Ukrainian government data.

Russia launched 158 ballistic and hypersonic missiles during July alone, the highest monthly total recorded since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, according to the same data cited by Reuters. RM48Us accounted for 87 of those launches, while another 36 were fired during the first eight days of August.

“Drones are particularly cheap, and are therefore effective when deployed in mass. But ballistic missiles, like this thing, are more difficult to defend against,” Heginbotham told the DCNF. “Unless the Russians have or can come up with better guidance for the RM48U than it was initially equipped with, it will not be terribly effective at striking high-value targets. But it can hit cities, and it will absorb whatever ballistic missile defenses the Ukrainians have left.”