Russian drone wave and ‘wasted’ missile follow Ukraine’s hit on pricey air defense
(Originally published Nov. 27 in “What in the World“) Ukrainian forces used their long-range, U.S.-made Atacm missiles to destroy a Russian air-defense battery in Kursk province.
U.S. President Joe Biden last week lifted his longstanding restriction against Ukraine using Atacms against targets inside Russia. Ukraine immediately began firing U.S. Atacms at targets in Bryansk province, and British Storm Shadow cruise missiles into Kursk province. Destroying the Russian S-400 anti-missile battery reportedly required three Atacms, part of two attacks Saturday and Monday that the Russian Defense Ministry said involved more than a dozen Atacms. Knocking out the S-400 was a profitable hit: each one of the missiles costs roughly $1.5 million; an S-400 battery costs at least $500 million.
Russia responded with what seemed like a waste of missile technology, firing an experimental, nuclear-capable intermediate-range missile at a military factory in Ukraine’s Dnipro. The Oreshnik missile caused what Ukrainian officials said was only minor damage, prompting outrage among Russia’s conservative critics. But officials now say the Oreshnik’s multiple warheads weren’t loaded with any explosives. That, and the fact that Russia fired a missile with a 5,000km range to hit a target just 700km away, support the theory that Moscow was merely conducting very public tests of a weapon it is threatening to use not against Ukraine, but against Europe.
The Pentagon has meanwhile agreed informally to buy roughly 300 more F-35s from their maker, Lockheed Martin. The deal to buy Lots 18 and 19 of the fighter jets follows a “handshake” agreement to pay Lockheed $870 million for parts and service on a still-unbrokered deal to buy Lot 20. Each of F-35 costs at least $82.5 million, though that cost is expected to rise to roughly $90 million with the new lots.
At $2 trillion, the F-35 program is the Pentagon’s most expensive program, and while incoming U.S. President Donald Trump has vowed to bring that cost down, he has also praised the fighter. But billionaire Elon Musk, whom Trump has nominated to head a new Department of Government Efficiency, lambasted the F-35 on his X social media site, writing that “Manned fighter jets are obsolete in the age of drones,” and posting a photo Chinese drones with the comment: “Meanwhile, some idiots are still building manned fighter jets like the F-35.”
Musk’s comments echo a debate among analysts and military experts about the rising role of drones in modern warfare, and whether they aren’t making expensive fighter jets, missiles, and even naval surface ships obsolete. So far, though, the Pentagon doesn’t see the solution as “either-or,” and is developing ways for manned fighter jets to be supported by swarms of drone “wingmen.”
Indeed, as Ukraine blasts its Atacms into Russia, Moscow responded Tuesday with an airstrike on Ukraine by 188 drones, the most it has ever deployed in a single assault. Russia has been launching nearly nightly drone attacks since September in what analysts say is a tactic to deplete Ukraine’s air defenses.