Russia retains ability to produce missiles - Air Force spox

The Russians are keeping a certain strategic stockpile of missiles and continuing production for further strikes on Ukraine.

That’s according to Ilya Yevlash, the spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, who spoke on the air of the national telethon, according to an Ukrinform correspondent.

"The Russians have a certain stockpile of missiles. If we talk about Zircons, open data sources say they have about 40 Zirkons available, and they can produce up to 10 of those per month; about 400 Onyx missiles, nearly 270 Kalibrs, and some 45 Kh-69 missiles,” said Yevlash.

According to the officials, with a certain periodicity, the invaders are able to produce new missiles to launch them on Ukraine, "but, of course, they cannot empty their stocks."

"There should always be some strategic reserve for periods of emergency. That is, they cannot utilize all of those missiles. But we see that the Russians manage to produce more missiles that they later launch over Ukraine," Yevlash informed.

Also, he added, the Russians periodically launch hoax targets in order to deplete Ukrainian air defense capabilities. It can be, for example, a balloon with angled reflectors or an electromagnetic pulse that produces some indicators and which the radar perceives as a target, the spokesman explained.

On the one hand, as Yevlash noted, the enemy expects that Ukrainian air defense will waste costly missiles on false targets, and on the other hand, such tactics are also aimed at detecting Ukrainian air defense systems.

As Ukrinform reported earlier, referring to the GUR defense intelligence, Russia has accumulated more than 700 Zircons, Onyx, Kh-69, and Kalibr missiles.