U.S. officials are seeing a failure rate of up to 60% for some of Russia’s precision-guided missiles being used in the assault on Ukrainian cities, according to a report on Thursday.
Failures can include such mishaps as a missile failing to launch or a missile not exploding on impact. Russia’s air-launched cruise missiles have failed at a rate of 20% to 60%, depending on the day, according to unnamed U.S. officials in the report.
The report did not specify the cause of the high failure rates of Russian missiles in Ukraine.
Air-launched cruise missiles were used in Russia’s deadly attack on a military training facility in western Ukraine, near the Polish border, on March 13 that reportedly killed 35 people.
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Ukrainian officials also say that air-launched cruise missiles were responsible for the March 18 attack on an aircraft repair facility adjacent to the international airport in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv.
The airport itself was not hit in that attack. It is unclear if the airport was one of the intended targets of the reportedly six cruise missiles launched from heavy strategic bomber aircraft flying over the Black Sea.
The Pentagon this week estimated that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military has launched more than 1,100 missiles since the beginning of the war.
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As a result of using more missiles than anticipated in order to achieve military objectives in Ukraine, the British Ministry of Defense said Russia has been forced to use “older, less precise weapons,” putting civilian lives at risk.
At least 925 civilians have been killed, and almost 1,500 have been injured in Ukraine during the war, the United Nations estimated.
