4.15.22
Soon after Russia seized Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014, a Ukrainian defense firm used an arms show in Kyiv to unveil its latest project: an anti-ship cruise missile it called “Neptune.” The new missile drew little attention at the time. But now it is in the spotlight after a U.S. defense official said Ukrainian forces used Neptune missiles to strike and sink Russia’s flagship Moskva war vessel in the Black Sea. “For the Ukrainians, if they were able to sink this ship or damage it with their own Neptune missiles, that’s a point of pride, first, and a useful military capability in that they will be able to keep the Russian fleet at bay,” said Mark Cancian, senior adviser for the international security program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The R-360 Neptune is itself based on an old Soviet cruise missile called the Kh-35, which had been produced in the Ukrainian town of Kharkiv. The company that developed Neptune, Luch Design Bureau, was founded in 1965 and had a long history of designing Soviet missiles. If Neptune missiles were fired at the Moskva, it would mark the first time that the weapon was used in practice, military experts say. The incident also suggests that the cruise missile, which has a stated range of about 200 miles, can evade missile defense systems such as those onboard the Russian ship.
The ship was fitted with long-range radar and an S-300 air-defense system, designed to provide protection not only for itself but the rest of the Russian fleet. Accounts from Ukrainian officials suggest that an aerial drone was used to distract the defense systems during the attack. Ukrainian officials said last year that four countries had expressed interest in importing Neptune missile systems for their own use, with Indonesia among those who may receive the first shipment. But there are also worries that Ukraine doesn’t have enough weapons at home. In an interview last year, Luch Design Bureau director Oleg Korostelov said that “due to lack of funding,” his company would only be able to supply up to 800 of the roughly 2,000 missiles requested by the Ukrainian military.
