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Did Ukraine just unleash its first Bars cruise missiles? A 500 km strike deep inside Russia suggests it
In the span of two weeks starting in early July, the German government signaled separate investments in Ukraine’s best attack drone—the Ukroboronprom An-196 Liutyi—as well as its first mass-producible cruise missile, apparently the Bars.
With substantial stocks of the new drones and missiles, Ukrainian forces should be capable of striking Russian targets as far away as 800 km. The drones would fly slower and may carry lighter, 50kg warheads. The missiles should fly faster and hit harder with heavier warheads weighing perhaps twice as much.
There’s some evidence the German spend is already making a difference. The An-196 and Bars “are being deployed on the front line with increasing frequency,” the pro-Ukraine Conflict Intelligence Team noted. On July 26, drones slammed into the Signal plant in Stavropol, in southwestern Russia 500 km from the front line in Ukraine. The plant manufactures radar and electronic warfare systems.
A photo that circulated on Russian social media the same day may depict, for the first time in public, wreckage of one of the Bars missiles.
In funding Ukraine’s expanding deep-strike complex, Germany is helping Ukraine do to Russia what Russia has been doing to Ukraine throughout its 42-month wider war on the country: disrupt Russian command, logistics and production where the Russians are most vulnerable—at home.
Major Gen. Christian Freuding, the head of the German defense ministry’s Situation Center Ukraine, announced the missile deal in early July. The weapons, apparently Bars, would begin arriving in Ukraine within weeks—meaning now.
Drones galore
Just days prior, Welt broke the news that Germany would also finance as many as 500 of the An-196 drones. The propeller-driven, satellite-guided Liutyi carries a 50-kg warhead farther than 800 kg. The $200,000 drone can follow a complex flight path and change altitude in order to dodge Russian defenses.
The An-196 already had German connections. The 3.5-m drone sports a German-made Hirth F-23 aviation engine producing 50 horsepower.
The Liutyis have been responsible for some of the most damaging strikes on targets deep inside Russia. Before Ukraine largely paused strikes on Russian oil facilities this spring, possibly bowing to pressure from the United States, the An-196s accounted for up to 80% of hits on refineries.
The turbojet Bars ranges around as far as the propeller-driven Liutyi does, but should hit harder thanks to a bigger warhead. And it should be more survivable owing to its likely higher speed. An An-196 motors along at slower than 320 km/hr; most cruise missiles travel twice as fast.
The Bars is reportedly capable of ground and aerial launch. The Ukrainian air force has modified its Sukhoi Su-24 bombers to carry British-made Storm Shadow and French-made SCALP cruise missiles that are 5 m long and weigh nearly 1,400 kg. The Bars should be smaller and lighter, and may also be compatible with the Su-24s.
We don’t know how much a Bars costs, but it’s almost certainly less than the millions of dollars a Western-made cruise missile can cost. “Its main advantage is reportedly its potential for mass production within Ukraine,” CIT explained.
“The extent to which the new Bars missile will affect the front line will depend entirely on how many are made available to the Ukrainian military,” CIT wrote. Considering that Russia produces 600 or so of its best Kh-101 cruise missiles every year, the hundreds of Bars the Germans may be financing should help the Ukrainians chip away at the Russians’ missile advantage.
Ukraine just solved the hardest math problem in modern air defense – with a 1970s German gun
