A Ukrainian drone warehouse and workshop for their production was struck on April 8 in response to the Kiev regime's repeated UAV attacks on Russian oil and gas facilities, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense.
The ministry specified that the Russian Armed Forces used the Iskander-M system for the strike with video footage showing that the missile hit the Ukrainian production facilities while nearby buildings remained intact.
"[The Iskander-M's] effectiveness is recognized everywhere in the West, because its missile hits the bull's eye at a distance of 500 kilometers, a deviation of five meters from the center of the target is the same as a sniper hitting the mark," Viktor Litovkin, Soviet and Russian Army veteran and military journalist, told Sputnik.
The Iskander-M is a road-mobile short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) with a minimum range of 50 km and a maximum range of up to 500 km. When equipped with an optical homing head the system boasts a circular error probability (CEP) of just 5–7 meters.
The nuclear-capable missile system was designed back in the Soviet era to destroy high-value targets well behind enemy lines, at the same time not violating the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty), which banned nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. The first Iskanders were adopted into service long after the collapse of the USSR in the mid-2000s.
The Iskander-M can be armed with both winged and ballistic projectiles. Cruise missiles, fired by the system, fly at ultra-low altitudes to delay detection. When it comes to the system's ballistic missiles, they have some peculiar features, according to Litovkin.
"Besides the fact that the Iskander-M missile is a ballistic one, it can also be called quasi-ballistic, it flies not only along a ballistic curve, it’s an arc," said the military expert. "The Iskander-M missile can fly along a ballistic curve, and then change its flight direction to the right, left, up, down, that is, leave the ballistic curve at supersonic speed and hit the target that was assigned to this missile."
"In addition, the missile can be provided with an image of the target. That is, an image of the target is uploaded into its on-board digital system. That is, primarily, a photograph of the target is uploaded and the missile will fly exactly to this very target. Although there may be any other objects to the right and left, it will adhere to the given target."
The Iskander-M is armed with two missiles to ensure high firepower of an attack. The system's launcher can fire either two ballistic missiles or two cruise missiles, depending on the mission assigned to the crew, according to the expert.
"The weight of the warhead ranges from 350 to 500 kilograms, but it produces such an explosion that can destroy a lot of assets, ranging from command posts, headquarters, and factories, to accumulations of enemy military equipment. It all depends on what kind of warhead Iskander will have," he said.
Another advantage of the Iskander-M system is that its crew consists of only three people who can launch and aim them at a given target, and maintain them and recharge the installation, according to the military expert.
Litovkin emphasized that 18 brigades armed with the Iskander-M operational-tactical systems have been deployed along Russia's entire border.
According to the military expert, Iskander missile systems have played a crucial role since the beginning of the special military operation in Ukraine.
"Iskanders struck the most important Ukrainian targets: thermal power plants, accumulations of military equipment, accumulations of personnel, including NATO mercenaries, most recently it has hit a plant for the production of heavy drones, and so on."
When asked whether the Iskander-M requires upgrading, the military analyst responded: "There is no point in modifying this system: it does its job very well."