by DAVID AXE
Drones are great, but they lack speed and payload. That’s why Ukraine’s best deep strike munitions are its cruise missiles. Where drones are light and slow, missiles are heavy and fast. They can better dodge Russian air defenses and, when they strike, strike harder.
But not all cruise missiles are created equal. And of Ukraine’s three main cruise missiles, there’s a winner and a loser. The winner: the Ukrainian navy’s Long Neptune, made by the Luch Design Bureau in Kyiv. The loser: the Ukrainian army’s Flamingo, made by Fire Point, also in Kyiv.
The Ukrainian air force fires Storm Shadow and SCALP-EG cruise missiles, but those missiles are made in Europe by MDBA. Ukraine can use only as many Storm Shadows as its allies produce and give away, but it can use as many Flamingos and Long Neptunes as its own industry can produce.
The Long Neptune is the lengthened, longer-range version of the navy’s basic Neptune—the missile that sank the Russian Black Sea Fleet flagship Moskva.
