The Major Lessons from the Russia-Ukraine War for China: Don't Blindly Trust Ballistic Missiles!
In a recent speech, Russian President Putin stated that Ukraine’s large-scale drone attacks against Russia did not inflict fatal damage. At this point, many people might ask: Isn’t it true that Russian forces have been dominating Ukraine throughout this war? The Russian military has been bombing Ukraine for over four years—so why haven’t these missile barrages shattered Ukraine? Why has Ukraine still managed to launch large-scale drone attacks deep into Russian territory?
This is precisely the major lesson the Russia-Ukraine war offers China: don’t blindly trust ballistic missiles. In the past, some believed that possessing thousands or even tens of thousands of cruise and ballistic missiles would be enough to defeat any formidable enemy and quickly end a war—a wishful fantasy. At the beginning of the conflict, Russia placed excessive faith in ballistic missiles. Over the past four years, Russian forces have launched more than 10,000 cruise and ballistic missiles (including S-300 systems used as ground-to-ground missiles), a number exceeding the total missile launches by the U.S. military in all post-Cold War conflicts—including the Gulf War, Kosovo War, Iraq War, Afghanistan War, and Syria War combined.
Yet despite this massive missile campaign, the war’s course remained largely unaffected. This indicates that Russia’s missile inventory was insufficient to completely destroy Ukraine’s infrastructure. Russia overestimated the power of missiles, underestimated Ukraine’s resilience, and failed to anticipate how firmly NATO would support Ukraine.
Russia’s missile production capacity is extremely weak, with very limited stockpiles. Currently, they can only produce around 200 missiles per month, enabling 3–4 large-scale coordinated air strikes. Each strike can deploy 70–80 missiles along with hundreds of drones. Even if Russia produces tens of thousands of small “moped” drones annually, their impact on the war’s outcome has been negligible—mainly because these drones have low flight performance, insufficient striking power, and are easily intercepted.
What could actually alter the course of the war is cheap guided bombs, coupled with an advanced operational air force capable of full-domain penetration. That is, an offensive air force able to penetrate deep into Ukrainian airspace—such as over Kyiv—to deliver precision-guided munitions. Clearly, the Russian Air Force currently lacks this capability. Otherwise, Ukraine would have already surrendered.
Original article: toutiao.com/article/1874101947247616/
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author.