Russian Copters Strike Ukrainian Troops With New Anti-Tank Missiles

Russia’s Ka-52M attack helicopters are equipped with a “new and highly effective” long-range missile that poses a serious threat to the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF), a US magazine has reported.

The missile is technically known as the Izdeliye (Product) 305 and is also referred to by its Russian acronym LMUR (light multi-purpose guided missile).

A Twitter screenshot of Russia's LMUR missile

The magazine cited the UK Defense Ministry’s recent Intelligence Update as saying that one of the key improvements of the Ka-52M is the integration of the LMUR, a new anti-tank missile, which has a range of approximately 15 km.

“Ka-52 crews have been quick to exploit opportunities to launch these weapons beyond the range of Ukrainian air defenses,” according to the British Defense Ministry intelligence report.

The magazine in turn called the “notably deadly” LMUR a “real escalation in the helicopter capabilities” of the Russian army, recalling that a non-upgraded version of the Ka-52 is typically fitted with laser-guided Vikhr and ATAKA anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM), with ranges of around 10 km and 6 km, respectively.

“The LMUR is in a different league. […] Rather than relying on laser guidance, the LMUR uses a combination of thermal imaging and satellite navigation. In direct-fire mode, the operator locks the thermal seeker on to a target and fires. For longer-range encounters though, the operator can fire the missile from out of sight towards specified coordinates, then use the missile’s thermal imager to find and lock on to the target,” the news outlet added.

In an apparent nod to the Ka-52M being used in the Russian special military operation, the magazine noted that the concept of anti-tank helicopters capable of striking from stand-off distances “seems to be working” in Ukraine.

The media outlet warned that if the UAF fails to tackle “the threat posed by Russian helicopters with the LMURs, the progress of the [Ukrainian] offensive is likely to be slow and bloody.”

This comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin said that all attempts by the UAF to re-launch their counteroffensive have been halted and the enemy has been pushed back, suffering heavy losses.

Putin told the Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg earlier this week that during the UAF’s latest attack, more than 200 Ukrainian soldiers were killed and that Russian forces had destroyed at least 26 enemy tanks. He added that 60% of the UAF’s military hardware had already been obliterated during the renewed hostilities.

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The Russian president spoke after a US newspaper reported about UAF forces purportedly launching “the main thrust of their counteroffensive" as they threw in “thousands of troops held in reserve, many of them Western-trained and equipped.”

Putin previously told a Russian Security Council meeting that Ukraine’s counteroffensive, which kicked off in early June, had yielded no results and that the UAF had suffered extensive losses, with "tens of thousands" of soldiers killed.

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The LMUR was for the first time on display at the International Military and Technical Forum ARMY 2021. The missile is designed to destroy single and group stationary and moving targets at any time of the day and in any weather conditions.

The Product 305 has a high-explosive fragmentation warhead weighing 25 kg and provides high accuracy in hitting targets with a deviation from the aiming line of no more than two meters.

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