The Russian Defense Ministry is apparently planning to set up a new brigade equipped with the Iskander-M missile system in the country's Eastern Military District, national media in Russia report. The unit is to be equipped with ballistic and cruise missiles with a range of less than 500 km. The deployment is a response to the US and Japanese military reinforcements in the region, it is said.
If the fundamental decision to deploy has been made, the new military unit is expected to be operational before the end of this year. At the end of December, the commander of the Eastern Military District (VVO), Colonel-General Alexander Chaiko, said that the district would also receive Tornado-S multiple rocket launchers, Mi-28NM attack helicopters and fifth-generation Su-57 fighters this year. This would increase the proportion of modern weapons in the Far East to 56 percent, said the general.
The VVO will not be the only recipient of Iskander systems this year. On January 24, the commander of the Central Military District, Colonel-General Alexander Lapin, announced that the district would be reinforced with two divisions of such missile systems in 2022.
In January 2019, the Russian Ministry of Defense officially introduced the 9M729 cruise missile as a new Iskander-M munition, which is more powerful but only has a range of 480 km to comply with the restrictions of the INF Treaty. A launcher was developed specifically for the new missile, which can accommodate four missiles rather than two, as is the case with the conventional Iskander-M systems.
In November 2019, the Ministry of Defense announced the completion of the upgrade of the army's missile brigades. The troops received Iskander-M instead of the outdated Tochka-U complexes. The Iskander-M was developed by the KBM design office based in Kolomna near Moscow, a subsidiary of High-Precision Weapons (HPW) Holding.
The Iskander ammunition loadout includes five types of ballistic and two types of cruise missiles. The ballistic missiles quickly gain a height of several dozen kilometers in order to then steer almost vertically towards the target and maneuver in the process. In the final phase of flight, their speed approaches hypersonic. All of this makes interception by missile defense systems more difficult.
Cruise missiles approach the target at an extremely low altitude, making them difficult to detect and destroy by conventional anti-aircraft systems. The combination of the two types of ammunition makes defending against Iskander attacks a difficult matter.
Yuri Laskin
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