‘Who Would Pay for It?’: Ukraine Has No Path to Long-Range Weapons Despite Minister’s Boast

Despite the defense minister’s big talk, Ukraine doesn’t have the capacity to develop its own long-range missiles nor the clout to demand such weapons from the West, an expert told Sputnik on Tuesday.

During a recent interview just before it was announced he was leaving office, Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said Ukraine needed to develop missiles with a range well beyond its present capabilities, to use for striking deep inside Russian territory.

"Of course, it should be done,” Reznikov told Ukrainian state media about long-range missile development, “but there is a nuance: we do not need a missile that flies 15,000 kilometers, we do not plan to fight with partners who are 15,000 kilometers away,’" Reznikov said.

At present, the Ukrainian military only has a strike capability of about 190 miles, thanks to the Army Tactical Missile Systems provided to Kiev alongside their HIMARS rocket artillery launchers. However, reports indicate Ukrainian forces may have fitted Soviet-era Tu-141 reconnaissance drones with explosives and used them to attack Russian bases in Dyagilevo in Ryazan Region and Engels in Saratov Region, the latter of which is nearly 400 miles from the conflict zone.

Michael Maloof, a former senior security policy analyst in the Office of the US Secretary of Defense, said there was slim chance Reznikov’s comments were realistic, but if they were, it would “call for a reevaluation of all assistance” being given to Kiev by Washington and NATO.

“Their industries are pretty well depleted, and if they showed signs of that, I think Russia would hit them very hard,” Maloof told Sputnik. “I don't think they have the industrial base. They're not going to be getting missiles from the West. So I have no clue what he's talking about. If they want to have some showpiece, where are they going to get the money? Who would pay for it?

“I mean, if you're going to develop something like that and develop the factory to make it, who pays for it? The United States? The United States doesn't support long-range or medium-range missiles for Ukraine that have the capability of being shot into Russia and creating a further escalation. And I think if there's evidence of that, then the funding would certainly be cut off after that - and it should be, because the last thing the world needs is an escalation of this conflict. So I think if that's the case, then this is going to call for a reevaluation of all assistance to the Ukrainians.”

On the other hand, it could be that Kiev would seek to pressure NATO into arming them with such long-range weapons, which might include ballistic missiles or cruise missiles like the Tomahawk, the latter of which is nuclear-capable and has long aroused the ire of Moscow since potential launch sites based on the AEGIS system were built in Romania and Poland.

“They can insist, but they're not going to get it,” Maloof said. “Look, the war will stop immediately when the supplies stop, and I think that that's going to be happening here very, very soon. This is the only way you're going to bring it to a close, because Ukrainians don't want to settle. They don't want to compromise. And Russia is going to hold on to what it has. And it's clear to me that now if the Ukrainians want to continue doing this, they're just going to get bashed even more and they're going to have further battlefield defeats, and that's going to be reflected very clearly in the press. And that will send signals to the West to put that pressure on them to finally stop the flow of resources to Ukraine.”

“I have some real questions on the credibility of the Ukrainian minister's statements on where they are in terms of any counteroffensive or what capabilities they're trying to build back up. They don't have the industrial base and they don't have any money. All the money that they're getting now is coming from the West. All the supplies, again, are coming from the West to fight this war. And I just don't see how they can justify its existence, number one,” he said of a long-range missile program, “but then even justify its necessity when the world is basically calling on Ukraine and Russia to sit down and negotiate. But it doesn't appear to be the case. So I think Russia is going to have to mount its counteroffensive.”

“The other thing that's lingering in the background that people conveniently like to forget - that's the weather. The [bad] weather is going to be coming in here very soon. We're already approaching fall and it's projected to be rather severe in Europe, the United States and elsewhere. And I think that this is going to be another indicator of the effectiveness. They're already losing in this counteroffensive. What's the fall and the winter going to bring?

“It's going to be a disaster for the Ukrainians, certainly. Once they wake up and can smell the coffee and agree to settle down, this is going to mean, of course, politically, that [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky is a dead man walking.”