Ukraine's missile ambition poised to reshape balance with Russia

In 2025, Ukraine plans significant advancements in producing various types of missiles, including ballistic ones. Mikhailo Samus, the director of the New Geopolitics Research Network platform, emphasizes in an interview with the Unian portal that the serial production of Ukrainian operational-tactical ballistic missiles will be crucial.

The expert notes that by the end of 2024, Ukraine had made progress in several areas, including producing new cruise missiles. Samus reminds readers that in 2024, Ukraine dramatically increased the production of drones, which is no longer surprising.

"We need to produce thousands of missiles not only to match Russia but also to surpass it in missile attacks on key targets, mainly military but also economic ones." The expert believes that Ukraine will achieve sufficient serial production of ballistic missiles, making it a leader in Europe.

The Ukrainian industry was one of the key suppliers of ballistic missiles during the USSR era, and that knowledge has remained. Until recently, Ukrainian capabilities were limited by the Missile Technology Control Regime, which restricted the range to about 500 kilometres.

Currently, Ukraine can design and produce missiles with a range of up to 2,000 kilometres, posing a challenge to Russia. Samus highlights that the Russian S-400 system struggles to intercept such targets. "If we manage to overcome technological and financial barriers, we will create a serial medium-range ballistic missile. For Russia, this means the necessity to end the war, as Ukraine will be able to target assets as far as the Ural Mountains."

President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that 2025 Ukraine will boost war production, planning to produce at least 30,000 long-range drones and 3,000 cruise and drone missiles, including new "Neptune" missiles. In 2024, Ukraine exceeded the production of the first 100 units.

Since 2014, Ukrainians have been working intensively on replacing Soviet-era Tochka-U systems. The result was a system known as Grom/Grom-2, with the first launch taking place in 2018, and tests were expected to be completed in 2024.

Before the full-scale war broke out, Ukraine had built a prototype battery of the Grom-2 system consisting of two launchers and command vehicles. It was this battery that was reportedly used to hit the Russian military airbase Saky in Crimea in 2022, long before they gained access to MGM-140 ATACMS ballistic missiles from the USA.

It appears that Ukrainians have completed the development phase, and in 2025, a dozen or perhaps several dozen ballistic missiles may enter the arsenal, with Ukraine being able to deploy them independently of the USA. Despite appearances, even such a small number can significantly impact military operations.

Details regarding the Grom and Grom-2 missiles remain confidential, but earlier information suggested developing an export version for Saudi Arabia. It was expected to be a ballistic missile with a 480-kilogram warhead and a maximum range of 300 kilometres, compliant with Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) restrictions.

For its own needs, not limited by MTCR, Ukrainians likely aimed to create a missile with a range of about 500 kilometres, similar to the Russian Iskanders-M. The guidance system is also likely based on a combination of inertial and satellite navigation, similar to foreign competing systems.

Although this solution could be susceptible to GPS signal interference, a missile designed with a 500-kilogram warhead in both fragmentation-explosive and cluster variants possesses such a high destructive force that even a small deviation from the target would not be an issue.

Grom-2 missiles could be a crucial asset for destroying Russian airbases located around 500 kilometres from the front line. The effectiveness of ballistic missiles stems from their flight speed of up to Mach 7 (8,638 kilometres per hour), allowing them to reach the target in just a few minutes.

This provides no time for evacuating the threatened facility compared to swarms of drones, which travel at just over 120 kilometres per hour. In their case, Russians had up to an hour to react, from detection to impact. Ballistic missiles reduce this time to a minimum, and defence against them is very difficult and costly. Consider that even Israel, with the best anti-ballistic defence in the world, failed to intercept all Iranian ballistic missiles.