Why can’t Ukraine just blow up Russian launchers firing ballistic missiles at its cities?

There is a reason Ukraine cannot simply blow up the launchers firing ballistic missiles at its cities. Russia's Iskander launchers are extremely hard to catch, and interfering with the missiles' production is nearly as difficult, presidential adviser Serhii "Flash" Beskrestnov said on the national telethon, according to UNIAN.

The launchers survive by never staying still or coming within reach. Iskander launchers head to their firing positions only when a combat task is set, sometimes moving along forest roads for five hours to avoid detection by satellites, then deploying fast, firing, and fleeing.

They launch from 140 to 150 kilometers behind the front line, which is why catching one on the march or at its firing position is so hard.

The launcher is a fleeting target

Beskrestnov described a weapon designed to be gone before it can be hit.

"The deployment of the Iskander happens very quickly. Then the launch. The Iskander fires and then flees the position," he said.

The forest-road approach and the 140- to 150-kilometer standoff are deliberate. By staying beyond HIMARS' range and moving under tree cover to evade satellites, the launcher gives Ukraine almost no window to detect, target, and strike it before it fires and moves on.

Attacking the factories is hard too

Ukraine's other option, hitting production, faces its own obstacles. The missiles are made deep underground, where they are not easy to attack, Beskrestnov said.

He also claimed sanctions do not work well against the Iskander because it is "probably the only product made 100% from Russian resources and Russian electronics." That claim sits awkwardly against Ukraine's own documented findings.

Ukraine's sanctions commissioner, Vladyslav Vlasiuk, reported that an Iskander fired at Kyiv Oblast on 10 July held more than 140 foreign components, 62 of them American. Meanwhile, Ukraine's Defense Intelligence has said that without foreign parts, Russia cannot build the missile at all. Ukraine has repeatedly struck the plants making Iskander components, precisely because those production nodes are vulnerable.

The interception gap makes it worse

The launcher problem compounds the shortage of defenses against the missiles themselves. With Ukraine short of the Patriot interceptors that are the only reliable defense against Iskander ballistic missiles, and the launchers nearly impossible to catch, Russia can keep firing them at a pace Ukraine cannot fully answer, striking cities from safe forest positions deep behind the front.