Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/1493095
Then, "radio silence" was what happened. It was difficult to find anybody who could know something or say something. Piotr Müller, spokesperson for the government announced that an emergency meeting of the security council would be arranged. Rumors were everywhere on the Internet, but the officials remained silent until late evening. This level of secrecy was astounding, given the Polish standards that we've already gotten used to... Poverty-Driven Wastefulness We know what happened next. Suffice it to say, the late evening speech by President Duda put an end to the most serious worries. Poland was not under attack. This seemed to be a real scenario, given the panicky releases issued by the western press outlets. A missile did hit the Polish territory - but this action was not intended. Russian and Soviet-made systems are not that accurate. They also sometimes fail. Meanwhile, both sides of the conflict utilize those in large quantities, also in the areas close to the Polish border. A potential airspace violation was only a matter of time. Frankly, it may be surprising that it only happened now. When Tuesday was passing by, the public still did not know whether the lost missile was launched by the Russians or the Ukrainians. The identified wreckage suggested that the S-300 5V55 missile was found in Przewodów. The missile was not one of the cruise missiles (such as Kalibr), used by the aggressor to attack the Ukrainian cities. But that conclusion was far from being a definitive one. And why is that? Neither do the Soviet/Russian S-300 missiles do not feature a large warhead nor are they a long- range weapon. 100-150 kilograms of explosives is a quantity that remains sufficient to neutralize an air threat - and this usually happens several hundred meters up in the air, several kilometers from the launch site. The S-300 can also be used in a surface-to-surface setting, against buildings, infrastructure, or infantry gathering points. This is an expensive, ineffective solution. The range of the missile is as low as 200 kilometers, while the warhead size is a limiting factor when it comes to lethality. A single missile is not enough to do the job properly. "Better than nothing", as they say. The Russian arsenal does not include a large stockpile of cruise missiles or long-range strike assets. Ones that can cover a distance of 1,500- 2,000 kilometers and that carry almost 500 kilograms of explosive material. Replenishing the stockpile remains a challenge now, due to the western sanctions concerning the missile components. The Russians resort to a variety of measures to fix that - for instance by launching missile defense system effectors in a surface-to-surface setting. Poverty-driven wastefulness has many faces - and this is one of them. The remains of the S-300 missile found in Przewodów could have come from a missile launched by the Ukrainians, to shoot down a Russian missile, that missed its intended target. The missile flew further, and the self-destruction feature failed or became active in the Polish airspace. www.fragoutmag.com