Russia Is Shooting Down Almost All Of Ukraine's Flamingo Missiles
The six-ton missiles can't get past Russian air force radar planes
This story was commissioned by Euromaidan Press. Since Substack pays only around a fifth of my bills, I have no choice but to take on a lot of freelance work. I still want my Substack audience to know where to read those freelance stories, however. Hence this excerpt.
Russia has been shooting down most of Ukraine’s best long-range cruise missiles as fast as Ukraine can launch them. Just one or two of the $500,000 Fire Point FP-5 Flamingo missiles have hit their targets in recent weeks.
That means Russian air defenses are working for now. Whether they’ll continue to work is the critical question for Ukrainian strike planners.
Under the cover of darkness on Aug. 6, the Ukrainian army’s 19th Missile Brigade launched at least three of the six-ton, jet-propelled Flamingos toward Tyumen Oblast in western Siberia. The missiles traveled around 2,500 km before disappearing, according to mapper AMK Mapping.
The apparent shoot-downs capped a difficult week for Ukraine’s deep strike campaign. AMK Mapping claimed the Russians shot down 10 of 11 launched Flamingos since July 1. That count is one mapper’s, based on open-source tracking, and no official Ukrainian or Russian figures exist to check it against.
The mapper may be off by one. Between July 24 and 25, at least one Flamingo struck the Vyatka Machine-Building Enterprise Avitek missile plant in Kirov Oblast 1,300 km from the border with Ukraine. Michael Bohnert, an analyst with the RAND think tank in California, concluded that two Flamingos hit the plant, causing visible damage.
It was a potentially powerful blow. Among other things, Avitek produces parts for the Tor medium-range surface-to-air missile system. Slowing Tor production “will have the most impact,” Bohnert explained. And the Ukrainian system that a Tor slowdown might benefit the most is ... the Flamingo.
Read the rest at Euromaidan Press.
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