Expert: Ukraine Can Strike Moscow With New Weapons

It's enough to redo the JSOW bombs to do this.

Theoretically, JSOW gliding bombs can be upgraded to cruise missiles, which will allow strikes with a range of more than 500 km, including Moscow. Oleh Katkov, the Editor-in-Chief of Defence Express, said this on the air on Radio NV.

In particular, Katkov reacted to the statement of the representative of the US State Department Matthew Miller that Ukraine can strike at the territory of Russia with the weapons that it made on its own, and that weapons production programs have been introduced in Ukraine over the past year.

"It must be understood that between the beginning of the program and the appearance of a large number of serial samples, time passes, and even in peacetime, when you are not bombed, when you have a national strategic program for the development, creation and mass production of certain weapons and military systems - this is so a bait for 5-10 years," Katkov said.

According to him, such statements by the United States have nothing to do with the real needs of Ukraine.

At the same time, he believes that the Western Allies could transfer important weapons to Ukraine marked "made in Ukraine" so that there would be no questions to them.

“Why Moscow can do this, but Washington can't. Why Iran can do this, but conditional London cannot. Everyone can do that. We're not there. It's not us. They did it also," Katkov added.

At the same time, he drew attention to the transfer of gliding bombs to Ukraine, and in particular JSOW.

"In my opinion, the only reason for the transfer of these rather valuable products is only one - the ability to convert them into cruise missiles. Because such a project existed - JSOW-ER. It existed from the late 2000s to 2023. It was closed a year ago. The US Navy's project. And it was closed due to the fact that they have a JASSM-ER cruise missile with a range of 900 km. Therefore, the conversion of the JSOW glide bomb into a cruise missile with a range of 500 km was not very interesting for them. There weren't those benefits. That is, the range of 500 km for the United States in the issue of aviation weapons is not enough," Katkov said.

He added that in the United States there were technical solutions for the conversion of the JSOW glide bomb into cruise missiles, but this was not launched in production.

According to him, the corresponding alteration can be quite minimalistic. A small-sized jet engine is installed in the starting part. The engine itself can be printed on a 3D printer by printing metal parts.

"There are also such 3D printers in Ukraine, and then we just take a fantasy on the topic: if the United States conditionally transfers printing technology, a licensed copy of this engine for production in Ukraine, transfers a package of technologies from Raytheon regarding the possibility of recycling in any form... then why not? This is the only objective option for the effective use of this ammunition. And so it must be understood that it will not have a number of components that are critical for the United States. For example, the navigation system," Katkov said.

At the same time, he suggested that when converting gliding bombs into cruise missiles, you can try to install the Ukrainian navigation system.

"Ukraine has such systems because somehow Ukrainian drones accurately hit oil refineries and the Main Missile and Artillery Directorate arsenals, and airfields... Add this system, add a self-made jet engine - we will get a cruise missile with a warhead of 450 kg, plus a range of more than 500 km. This is the distance to Moscow for you to get it. And no one will ever tell us: you can strike or you can't strike. This is a Ukrainian missile. We use it wherever we want," Katkov said.

He added that it is much easier to redo ready-made things that the United States can transfer than to create everything from scratch. The US stopped ordering JSOW production in 2015. According to him, the United States may still have more than a thousand of such ammunition in stock.

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