Russia has exhausted its arsenal of high-precision weapons – ISW
Russian troops have significantly depleted their arsenal of precision weapon systems and suffered significant losses in aviation. Therefore, it is likely to be difficult to maintain the current pace of a coordinated campaign by the Russian military against Ukrainian critical infrastructure.
This is stated in the analytical report of the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
The ISW report quoted a statement from the Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valery Zaluzhny, who said on November 3 that Ukrainian forces had destroyed 278 aircraft, compared to the Soviet Union’s loss of 119 aircraft over the 10-year war in Afghanistan. The UK Ministry of Defense said on November 7 that Russian forces are unlikely to make up for these aviation losses in the next few months, as they are likely to greatly exceed Russia’s ability to produce new airframes. In addition, the representative of the GUR of Ukraine, Vadym Skibytskyi, in a comment to the Economist on November 7, stated that the Russian military has used more than eighty percent of its modern missiles in a coordinated campaign to strike Ukrainian infrastructure, and that the Russian military has only 120 Iskander missiles.
“Previously, ISW estimated that Russia had exhausted its arsenal of precision weapons systems during the campaign against Ukrainian critical infrastructure, which aims to suppress the will of the people of Ukraine (but is unlikely to succeed),” the report emphasizes.
Ukrainian sources said on Nov. 7 that Ukrainian officials and engineers could restore power to normal levels within weeks if the pace of Russian strikes on critical infrastructure slows dramatically, analysts said.
“Skybytskyi also reported that Russian officials reached an agreement with Iranian officials regarding the purchase of Fateh-110 and Zolfaghar ballistic missile systems,” the analytical report says.
ISW estimates that Russian forces are relying on Iranian-made weapons systems to support a coordinated strike campaign against Ukrainian critical infrastructure.
