WASHINGTON, Nov 30 — Russia is firing unarmed cruise missiles that were designed to carry nuclear warheads at targets in Ukraine to try to deplete Kyiv’s stocks of air defences, a senior US military official said yesterday.
The official, who declined to be named, was asked about a November 26 assessment by Britain’s military intelligence which said that Russia was “likely” removing nuclear warheads from cruise missiles and firing the unarmed munitions into Ukraine.
That intelligence update cited open source imagery showing wreckage of an air-launched cruise missile fired at Ukraine that seemed to have been designed in the 1980s as a nuclear delivery system.
The British defence ministry said a ballast was probably being substituted for the warheads, a system that will still produce damage through the missile’s kinetic energy and unspent fuel.
Asked about the assertion, the US military official told Pentagon reporters: “It’s certainly something that they’re trying to do to mitigate the effects of the air defence systems that the Ukrainians are employing.”
These are the first comments by a US official about the assessment.
The Pentagon has said that Russia’s surge in missile strikes in Ukraine is partly designed to exhaust Kyiv’s supplies of air defences and finally achieve dominance of the skies above the country.
For that reason, the United States and other allies have focused on providing air defence supplies for Ukraine. That ranges from everything from legacy Soviet-era systems to more modern, Western ones.
A senior US defence official, also speaking on condition of anonymity in yesterday’s briefing, acknowledged that the Patriot missile defence system was one of the many capabilities being considered to help Kyiv protect against Russian missiles.
The United States has already provided a range of air defence capabilities to Ukraine, including NasaMS air defence systems as well as more than 1,400 Stinger anti-aircraft systems and counter-artillery and air surveillance radars. — Reuters
