Today, there is a lot of interesting news from the Russian Federation.
Here, Ukraine’s new domestically produced cruise missile has shown it can now strike further into Russian territory, reaching as far as St. Petersburg, Moscow, and the Caucasus oil fields. The debut of the long Neptune missile not only devastated a massive Russian oil refinery but also signaled a new phase in the war where no high-value Russian target is truly safe.
The Ukrainians launched a major missile strike on the strategic Russian oil refinery in Tuapse, causing a large fire burning over 1,000 square meters of the refinery. Geolocated footage from the area reveals that even though many firefighters were deployed, they could still not extinguish the fire at the oil refinery for two days, risking the spread of fire and destruction of the entire refinery.
Tuapse oil refinery is one of Russia’s largest refineries, as it can process up to 12 million tons of oil annually, dealing damage to both the Russian economy and military needs. Initially, the explosion was blamed on drone strikes, but doubts emerged as the Ukrainian General Staff confirmed that they were using a new version of the Neptune missile, debuting the long Neptune with an extended range payload and guidance system.
The long Neptune’s range and strategic impact
According to official statements, the long Neptune has a 150 kg warhead; however, based on the size of the explosion and damage to the target, several analysts have speculated that this could be as much as 300 kg. Additionally, the Ukrainian General Staff stated that the long Neptune has an improved range of up to 1,000 km compared to the 300 km of the previous version. However, future deep strikes might prove different.
For comparison, the American ATACMS missiles had a maximum range of 300 km and a payload of 240 kg of explosive failure. German Taurus cruise missiles range 500 km, two times less than the new Ukrainian long Neptune. The most significant restriction in Ukrainian strike capabilities is the limited deliveries and permissions tied to these Western weapon systems. However, as the long Neptune is domestically produced, this means that besides a massively increased range, Ukraine has now gained self-sufficiency regarding cruise missiles to use for strikes against high-value Russian targets.
Ukraine’s missile self-sufficiency changes rules
Besides oil refineries, the new long Neptune missile can strike most of the strategic Russian military infrastructure, including critical command centers in Moscow, Rostov, Volgograd, and St. Petersburg. Furthermore, this allows the Ukrainians to more effectively strike Russian military and air bases that they could only attack with drones before, most notably the Engels, Yeysk, Astrakhan, and Morozovsk strategic air bases, which Russians used to launch strategic bombers to conduct strikes on Ukrainian civilian and military targets. If Ukrainians launch a major Neptune strike campaign against Russian airfields, the Russian Air Force would have to withdraw from their air bases and halt or heavily reduce their air support over Ukraine, relieving both Ukrainian frontline soldiers and military infrastructure and logistics in the rear.
On top of critical air bases, the Ukrainians could now also strike ammunition depots, warehouses, and critical infrastructure, along with higher-level command posts located further in the rear, majorly disrupting Russian offensive operations. However, Russians cannot move their assets further away than they already are, without the distance to the front line being too far, meaning that the ever-so-centralized Russian army would need to decentralize its essential military infrastructure. Besides being unfeasible in and of itself, such a massive operation would create huge issues and disruption and expose new weaknesses along with it.
Overall, the Ukrainians launched their first demonstrative strike with long Neptune missiles, inflicting severe damage to one of the largest Russian oil refineries, which now pose an even greater risk to the most critical Russian military infrastructure. President Zelenskyy also announced that the Ukrainian military-industrial complex will produce 100,000 long-range munitions of various types, including the long Neptune cruise missiles. This even further underscores the massive achievement of Ukraine, as Ukrainians will now be able to strike valuable and critical Russian assets deep in the rear with domestically produced cruise missiles on a massive scale never seen before.
In our daily frontline report, we pair up with the military blogger Reporting from Ukraine to keep you informed about what is happening on the battlefield in the Russo-Ukrainian war.
