During a recent missile strike targeting Ukraine, several Russian Kh-101 cruise missiles once again ended up falling on Russian territory.
On November 28, malfunctioning missiles launched towards Ukrainian energy facilities crashed in the vicinity of Iki-Burul, Kalmykia, reportedly due to technical failures during flight.
Local residents posted images of the missile debris and craters where one of the missiles impacted. Incidents like this are often concealed by Russian authorities, but some evidence occasionally emerges through social media and eyewitness accounts.
According to Ukrainian military sources, every missile salvo launched by Russia tends to include some malfunctioning units that fail to reach their intended targets and instead crash shortly after being launched.
The trajectory of Russian missile launches often takes them over large bodies of water, such as the Volgodonsk Reservoir and the Caspian Sea, precisely to mitigate risks associated with potential failures. Despite these precautions, incidents on land, such as the one in Kalmykia, are not entirely preventable.
This is not the first time such an event has been recorded. A similar incident occurred in the same region on February 1, 2023, when an Kh-101 missile crashed during an offensive against Ukraine.
Furthermore, in 2015, during the first-ever combat mission of Kh-101 missiles in Syria, several of them reportedly crashed in Iran en route from the Caspian Sea to targets in Syria, highlighting consistent issues with reliability.
These repeated technical failures underscore ongoing challenges in Russia’s missile program, raising questions about the reliability of its weapons systems amidst an extensive campaign against Ukrainian infrastructure. The frequency of these incidents, though often underreported, reveals vulnerabilities in the Russian missile arsenal that Moscow seems keen to keep out of public view.
The malfunction of missiles intended for Ukrainian targets not only reflects operational shortcomings but also puts Russian civilians at risk. While the impact of such incidents has so far been limited to property damage, the potential for civilian casualties in Russian territories remains a growing concern, particularly given the frequency of launches and the scale of Russia’s ongoing military operations.
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