Is This Ukraine's New Bars Cruise Missile?
Germany is paying for hundreds of new missiles and drones for Ukraine.
In the span of two weeks starting in early July, the German government signaled separate investments in Ukraine’s best attack drone—the Ukroboronprom An-196 Liutyi—as well as its first mass-producible cruise missile, apparently the Bars.
With substantial stocks of the new drones and missiles, Ukrainian forces should be capable of striking Russian targets as far away as 800 km. The drones would fly slower and may carry lighter, 50kg warheads. The missiles should fly faster and hit harder with heavier warheads weighing perhaps twice as much.
There’s some evidence the German spend is already making a difference. The An-196 and Bars “are being deployed on the front line with increasing frequency,” the pro-Ukraine Conflict Intelligence Team noted. On July 26, drones slammed into the Signal plant in Stavropol, in southwestern Russia 500 km from the front line in Ukraine. The plant manufactures radar and electronic warfare systems.
A photo that circulated on Russian social media the same day may depict, for the first time in public, wreckage of one of the Bars missiles.