For months, Ukraine has begged its allies for permission to strike Russian territory with Western-supplied long-range missiles, but has been mostly rebuffed.
Now, Kyiv says it has its own weapon that’s just as good.
The Palianytsia was created by Ukraine’s burgeoning defence industry to finally provide “answers” to waves of Russian bombings and missile strikes, Defense Minister Rustem Umerov promised Monday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it “a new class” of weapon, and released a video suggesting it can strike hundreds of kilometres inside Russia.
Those comments came after Russian missiles and drones targeted Ukraine’s electrical infrastructure in the largest such attack in weeks. A second barrage on Tuesday killed at least five people.
“Ukraine is preparing its response. Weapons of its own production,” Umerov wrote on his Facebook page. “This once again proves that for victory, we need long-range capabilities and the lifting of restrictions on strikes on the enemy’s military facilities.”
Zelenskyy confirmed the existence of the Palianytsia on Saturday, which marked Ukraine’s 33rd anniversary of independence from the former Soviet Union. Saturday also saw the first use of the new weapon, targeting a Russian military installation in the occupied territory, officials said without providing details.
The Ukrainian president referred to the strike as a successful “test” of the weapon at a news conference Tuesday. He added the new capability, along with Ukraine’s successful incursion into Russia’s Kursk region nearly a month ago, will put Kyiv in a strong position to end the war through dialogue.
“The main point of this plan is to force Russia to end the war. And I want that very much — (that it would be) fair for Ukraine,” he told reporters.
The Palianytsia was developed under intense secrecy.
Its name comes from a type of Ukrainian bread and a word so difficult to pronounce correctly that it was used to unmask suspected Russian spies early in the war.
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Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian defence ministry have made clear that most information about the new weapon is classified. But there have been clues about its capabilities.
A Ukrainian military video posted to Zelenskyy’s Telegram channel claims two dozen Russian airfields are within range of the Palianytsia, and shows a map labelling those airfields. The farthest one inland, Savasleika, is more than 700 kilometres from the northern Ukrainian border.
By comparison, Moscow is less than 600 km away.
That range puts the Palianytsia beyond those of the U.S.-supplied ATACMS and British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles. Both have been supplied to Ukraine since late last year, along with French SCALP missile systems, though initially with a shorter range due to fears of provoking Russia.
The U.S. began supplying full-range ATACMS this spring, after Congress approved a new round of supplemental aid to Ukraine that included a provision to rush the missile systems to the frontlines.
But Washington and its NATO allies continue to stipulate that their supplied weapons can only be used against Russian forces in occupied Ukraine, not mainland Russia. The Biden administration suspended the rule this spring to allow Ukraine to repel Russian forces that had amassed across the border from Kharkiv, a northern city that is Ukraine’s second-largest metropolitan area, but stressed strikes were still limited to the immediate border regions.
The restrictions have long frustrated the Ukrainians and military analysts, as well as U.S. lawmakers and former Biden administration officials.
The Institute for the Study of War said in an assessment Saturday Russia was “leveraging sanctuary space in deep rear areas” knowing it can’t be hit by Ukrainian firepower. It estimated at least 250 militarily significant targets in Russia were within range of ATACMS missiles, but current restrictions allow Ukraine to strike only 20 of them.
Ukraine’s military has sought to fight back with drone attacks that have gone deep into Russia, including an attack on Monday that struck buildings in Engles and other parts of the Saratov region, about 670 km from Kharkiv.
Ukraine says its inability to fight back with long-range weapons has deadly consequences. Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi said Russia has launched 9,627 long-range missiles and Ukraine’s defences shot down only a quarter of them, and that more than half the Russian targets were civilian.
Richard Shimooka, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute who studies defence policy, said Ukraine will be aiming to build up a suitable stockpile of Palianytsia missiles that can rain down on Russian targets in the same way as Moscow’s missile barrages.
That strategy can also explain the West’s concerns, he said.
“One of the big concerns is, these systems can miss,” he said in an interview.
“(Ukraine’s Western allies) want to avoid any civilian casualties that would undermine broad support for the Ukrainians.”
Ukraine’s technology minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, told The Associated Press each Palianytsia missile costs less than US$1 million, and the military is turning to the private sector to bring down production costs further. A specialist, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the outlet the missile has a solid-fuel booster that accelerates it, followed by a jet engine.
“I think this will be a game changer because we will be able to strike where Russia doesn’t expect it today,” Fedorov said.
Shimooka said Russia has been moving its strike aircraft out of range of NATO-provided systems.
Russia has long said strikes within its territory would be a red line and further escalate the war, though Zelenskyy has said the Kursk incursion showed Moscow’s threats of retaliation are a bluff.
On Tuesday, Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov warned the West was “asking for trouble” if it considered loosening the long-range weapons restrictions, and that World War Three would not be confined to Europe.
But Shimooka said Ukraine’s new weapon may limit the West’s culpability.
“This alternative is better for the allies, because you don’t risk that collateral damage of the blowback onto Western countries (if Ukraine strikes Russian targets),” he said.
“You don’t have to keep authorizing more and more systems — they just have to build up a stockpile of this one capability.”
— with files from the Associated Press and Reuters
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