Ukrainian Air Force Intelligence: New Russian Economy Cruise Missile Now In Mass Production

Russia’s new S8000 Banderole light cruise missile is now fully-deployed with armed forces attacking Ukraine and after more than a year of testing is now being mass produced, Ukrainian news platforms reported on Wednesday citing Air Force intelligence. Factory output is at least ten missiles day and thanks to its success in combat production quantities are likely to rise, the Ukrainian OSINT research group OKA_GORA reported on Thursday.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. The Banderole (Russian: Бандероль = Small mailed package, often of books or magazines) is a low-cost missile assembled with key components from China, the US and South Korea. Unlike legacy Russian cruise missiles it carries no on-board anti-jammers, cannot fly a complicated flight path nor launch flares to avoid potential interceptors. The Banderole’s 220-330 pound warhead is about three times smaller than half ton warheads typically carried by conventional Russian cruise missiles. To date Russia has mostly used the Banderole missile as a decoy to cover heavy cruise missile strikes, or to hit targets thought not well-protected by Ukrainian air defenses. With an observed speed of 300-375 mph the Banderole is significantly slower than heavy Russian cruise missiles typically flying subsonic at speeds around 500–560 mph. However, the Banderole’s flight characteristics and jet engine heat signature can make it look like a “real” cruise missile on Ukrainian air space tracking networks. Other Topics of Interest ‘We Were Ready to Shoot It Down’: Tusk Says Russian Kh-101 Missile Entered Poland The missile fell near Tarnawa-Kolonia in Poland’s eastern Lublin province. Russia’s best cruise missile, the $1.5 million bomber-dropped Kh-101, uses internal sensors and terrain-following software to fly itself to target and usually hit within 5-10 meters from where it was aimed. The low-budget Banderole with an estimated production price of $150-300,000 uses satellite navigation and in combat has appeared able usually to hit within 20-30 meters of a target. Civilian air defense platforms monitored by Kyiv Post overnight Wednesday-Thursday reported Banderole missiles attacking the southern Ukrainian cities Krivoi Rih and Mykolaiv. Per those air warden-managed information platforms, Russia has launched salvoes of one to three missiles intermittently in June through mid-July, as part of the Kremlin’s nightly massed air bombardment campaign against Ukraine. From July 15-present Ukrainian spotters and radars detected incoming Banderole missiles almost nightly, in almost all cases approaching from international air space above the Black Sea. The major port city Odesa was targeted repeatedly. A Jul. 17 city administration statement said that on average Russia forces were launching 9-10 missiles a night at Odesa and the neighboring ports Ilychevsk and Yuzhny, the majority of them Banderole missiles. Air watch networks covering air space above the northern Ukrainian cities Kharkiv, Poltava and Sumy all reported rare-for-that-sector incoming Banderole missiles sightings since Sunday, but not in salvos. On Sunday Kharkiv city authorities reported a Banderole strike hit private home north of the city killing one person, a woman aged 40, and injured sixteen more civilians. Russian mil-blogger networks on Wednesday credited a Banderole hit for causing a major fire that destroyed a civilian logistics warehouse in Sumy. Ukrainian authorities and media have acknowledged the damage but not made public the type of weapon causing the damage. According to a Wednesday report in the semi-official Ukrainian military news platform Militarny, Russian Air Force operators initially used a large unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) called an Orion as the launch platform for Banderole missiles, but as experience was gained Russia Banderole bombardment tactics shifted to using attack helicopters, most often Mi-28 gunships (NATO reporting name: Havoc) based in the occupied Ukrainian territory Crimea or in Russia’s south-western Belgorod region. As production and mass employment has expanded missile developers likely in the Dubna production complex north of Moscow have tested and fielded a ground-launch platform for the Banderole missile that is now in use. As with air-launched missiles, the main targets for the weapon are port infrastructure, logistics hubs, terminals, and food warehouses, that report said. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency HUR (Ukrainian: Головне управління розвідки Міністерства оборони України) has published materials seemingly documenting 20-30 significant foreign components imported by Russia to assemble Banderole missiles, in some countries’ cases seemingly in direct violation of international sanctions banning the transfer of military equipment and resources to Russia. Reportedly, almost all the components are commercial, off-the-shelf items with civilian, “dual-use” applications making it difficult to prove the component was exported to Russia only for wartime use. The Banderole’s most prominent dual use components are its Swiwin SW800Pro miniature turbojet engine (China) and Murata lithium batteries (Japan). Other critical pieces of the Banderole are effectively banned by their producing countries for direct export to Russia but nonetheless find their way to the Dubna assembly line via third party importers and smuggling. According to a May HUR report the illicit imports included Robotis’ Dynamixel MX-64AR servo actuators (South Korea), Toshiba phototransistors (Japan) and made-in-USA microelectronics manufactured by Texas Instruments, Analog Devices, Microchip Technology, Intel and/or AMD. Ukrainian investigators also have found Swiss integrated circuits and Australian telemetry radio chips in Banderole debris, that source said. Stefan Korshak is the Kyiv Post Senior Defense Correspondent. He is from Houston Texas, is a Yalie and since the mid-1990s has worked as correspondent/photographer for newswire, newspapers, television and radio. He has reported from five wars but most enjoys doing articles on wildlife and nature. You can read his weekly blog on the Russo-Ukraine War on Facebook, Substack and Medium. His new book on the 2022 Siege of Mariupol is available on Amazon UK and Amazon US.