Roman Svitan: Ukraine Creates Weapons That Will Reach The Urals

It's capable of breaking through Russian air defenses.

Ukraine continues to increase production of its own long-range missiles and successfully uses them against military targets of the Russian occupiers. How will the increased production of Ukrainian Flamingo missiles affect the course of hostilities and Ukraine's position on the front?

About this, Charter97.org spoke to Roman Svitan, an AFU colonel in reserve, military expert and flight instructor:

- Well, we should still treat some information reports with a degree of skepticism. The fact is that the "Flamingo" is not a simple missile, it is quite a heavy missile. It has been produced in several pieces, most likely - pre-production, it is being tested in the field. Why, in principle, to send it to the Russians better to conduct tests in combat conditions, that is, just now it is sent. For it to quickly go into the flow and be produced 200 pieces a month - so far I would not say that this is possible in principle; it is too big a figure. Why? Because Neptune we produce one missile a week - we have been doing that for several years, and the level of this kind of missile, like Flamingo, depends on the engine. The warhead is not a problem there: you can take, let's say, a FAB-500, a simple high-explosive aerial bomb, then sew it into a body, add a wing and a control system. And the issue is the engine. The engine used for this missile is the AI-25T; there are several hundred of them, let's say, but if you produce 200 per month, these engines will run out in six months. It is practically impossible to produce them again, i.e. to start production to make such a number of engines - 200 engines per month. There are boundary certain figures for these engines. Therefore, I think, if different rockets are produced, there could be 200 rockets of all nomenclatures in total. I will still believe that it can be "Palyanitsya", "Pekalo" - we have different rockets, all 200 of them can still, in principle, be calculated. But it is unrealistic to produce 200 Flamingos per month.

It is possible to use these missiles, say, in large quantities - maybe in one combined attack with drones and other missiles - so that they could break through the Russian air defense, hide between, say, decoy drones or decoy missiles. Then they will really be able to by their range, because they have a range of at least a thousand and a half, probably should be. At least the Russians are now confirming this range: they have laid out several missiles in their disassembled, or rather destroyed, form, which means that they roughly show that this missile can reach a thousand and a half kilometers. What is 1,500 kilometers? Practically up to the Urals - up to the Urals is about two thousand kilometers; this is a large part of the European territory of Russia, which can be covered by this missile.

It is important for Ukraine, of course, to scale production - the multiplication of this particular missile, so that it could perform a combat mission. As a target for surface-to-air missile systems it is light, as a target for air defense - light, but in large quantities, when the suppression ratio of Russian air defense exceeds, it can fulfill the maximum combat mission. It has a warhead of up to a ton, in the neighborhood of a ton, which means that these are already serious warheads that can disable, at the very least, any facility that works for the military: an oil refinery or a gas processing plant. Several such missiles can also disable military facilities, and if there are tandem warheads, then underground explosions are also possible, so called - they can reach the third or fourth underground floor. Therefore, it would be important for us to produce large quantities of these missiles, but understanding that this is technically impossible mainly because of the engines, I think in principle that we will produce a few dozen missiles a month, and then in the mode of accumulation, in the mode of addition by other means this missile will fulfill its task.

- Donald Trump announced (readiness to transfer to Ukraine https://charter97.org/ru/news/2025/10/9/658632/) American "tomahawks". How can such weapons change the balance of power and affect the course of the war, especially in the context of strikes on the rear of the occupants?

- It would be better if Trump did not declare, but handed them over. As long as he declares and does not hand over, so far it is only shaking the air; but if he handed over these "Tomahawks", then, at least, there could be half-ton combat units and ranges of up to one and a half thousand kilometers. These are the same, by the way, as the Flamingos, only the Tomahawks have half as many warheads as the Flamingos. The Tomahawks themselves are, of course, better than the Flamingos in various ways: they can go at extremely low altitudes, dodging behind the terrain, their accuracy in reaching the target is quite high, they can perform maneuvers according to a given program; the missile itself is an advanced model. And, in principle, if we received the same thing I told you about the Flamingo, the same picture would be if we received the same Tomahawks.

The issue of quantity is very important, because a few missiles, even a few dozen, yes, they will hit the Russian military economy or some infrastructure facilities, but they will not put it out of action. It's very important here - that is, as some kind of sword of Damocles that could hang over Russia; but this sword of Damocles will quickly get used to.

That is, I think that just Tomahawks in this sense will not make a furor for us: they can help Trump to put pressure on Si Jinping before the summit that Trump has from October 31 to November 1 in South Korea - the Asia-Pacific summit. And there Trump will, to put it mildly, share the world with Xi Jinping - militarily or maybe economically. If such "Tomahawks" and such weapons appear in Ukraine, even if Ukraine does not use them, it will just create pressure on Xi Jinping, because Russia is China's "six", i.e. such a rabid dog; the possibility of knocking it off, let's say, is additional pressure, nothing more.

That's why I wouldn't pin much hope on Tomahawks, because there won't be many of them - there can't be many of them: they produce about 50 per year; yes, there are only a few thousand of them, but they are located on American bases, on American submarines, on ships, and these missiles are on combat duty. So, nobody is going to give us hundreds of these missiles. And a few missiles, even a few dozen of these missiles will not do anything in a year. I'll say it again: Trump needs it more. And we, of course, need a large number of means of defeat - missiles in the hundreds, in reality - about five hundred, or even thousands of pieces; only then it is possible to inflict a serious defeat on the Russian economy and military infrastructure with a range of at least a thousand to a thousand and a half thousand kilometers. And better, of course, up to the Urals, i.e. up to two thousand kilometers.

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