chart of the strikes and which missiles were used.

Noteworthy here is that Russia isn't using as many Shaheds anymore even though the idea was that they'd be ramping up to use more and more. Instead, Russia has been using a lot of extremely expensive high performance cruise missiles like the Kalibr, KH-101, KH-31, Kinzhal, KH-22, and S-300/400 in ground attack mode.

The attack this week (81 missiles) was not the largest in 2023 – the largest was one month ago with 105 total. This attack was different in terms of type of systems used, launch locations, variation of launchers and missile trajectories, making it complex to defend against. /4 It featured 6 Kinzhal hypersonic ALBMs – the largest salvo so far of them in the war and the largest recorded for combat use of this missile. Russia doesn't have large numbers of this system, rumored in the dozens. More on that: /5

Ukrainian officials say they cannot intercept Kinzhal, Kh-22 ASCMs and S-300 (SA-20) air defense missiles repurposed for land attack roles. too fast, trajectory is difficult. They claim Russia has fired 210 Kh-22 since 2022, none of them intercepted. /6 The Kh-22 (AS-4) Soviet-era ASCM was designed to be an aircraft carrier killer. It is not very precise, but it is supersonic. /7

From the info that I have, there is no set pattern to the makeup of the strike packages this year. Many are ASCMs or SAMs purposed for land-attack roles. A few reasons for this in no particular order: experimentation to see what works, stockpile issues, launcher readiness. /8

Note, no SS-26/SSC-7 in quite some time, probably as inventory is low. They are using different combinations of balloons, Shaheds, timing waves of missiles, shifting launch locations, and so on, to reduce interception rates. /8

Not depicted in the chart - each strike originates from slightly different locations. They haven’t launched much from Belarus in the last month, according to Ukrainian officials. It's a mix from Belgorod, Caspian+ Black Sea, Rostov, Kursk, and occupied Zaporizhzhia. /9

While the Russians likely know the limitations and strengths of Ukraine’s soviet/Russian origin SAMs, they are likely trying to probe weaknesses in NASAMS or IRIS-T performance. /10

Back in November, NASAMs had a 100% success rate according to SECDEF Austin. /11

I don't doubt that an AMRAAM can achieve a 100% success rate against cruise missiles. It is extraordinarily capable and intended to engage fighter jets deploying countermeasures and high G maneuvers, so a cruise missile is fish in a barrel for it.

As for overall targets – most of these strikes are continuing to target the power grid, an oil refinery, defense industrial targets – what is called “critical infrastructure” in Russian mil strategy. However, missiles are striking residential buildings. /12

Russia has a decent amount of firepower to throw at fixed targets like buildings, but is extremely bad at hitting moving targets because Russia seriously neglected ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) capabilities. Honestly speaking, the reason Ukraine turned the war around is because outstanding American ISR is being fed to Ukraine. The US identifies the Russian ammo dumps and HQs, then feeds the targets to Ukraine for HIMARS strikes. Russia seriously neglected these expensive capabilities in favor of having bigger firepower numbers on paper, but all that firepower is useless if you can't find targets for it. One of the greatest lessons of this war for any in doubt, is that the American warfighting doctrine of C3ISR which has been around since at least the 90s, won against Russias "just have the most tanks and artillery and throw them at the enemy" doctrine which has remain essentially unchanged from WW2. A handful of HIMARS were able to shut down Russia's offensive operations by taking out ammo dumps and HQs over June/July 2022, and Russia's forced mitigation measures of pulling HQs and ammo dumps further back and dispersing them more, have hampered its ability to mass the force required to break through anywhere, which is why they have to resort to Wagner's human wave tactics which... well, they're going to run out of prisoners long before Ukraine runs out of trenches.

Is Russia following their CONOPs for PGMs? Yes and no. On one hand there is an adherence to striking critical infrastructure, but on the other hand they not found lasting effects from this approach and haven’t switched to a fundamentally different strategy. /15

Ukraine just repairs their grid. Power was up again for something like 90% of people within hours of Russia's latest big attack. Russia can only launch these attacks every few weeks. So these attacks at this point are a strategic failure and only a mild nuisance.

Final thought - Russia is facing PGM inventory issues and is experimenting with what it has left. These attacks strain Ukrainian air defenses and this is a problem over time. The attacks come every few weeks. thanks for reading/end.

It has already been said that Russia's stockpiles of missiles are gone, and now Russia is just relying on how fast it can produce more. In the longer term I'd assume that Russia will be able to pump out Shaheds, but who knows how long they'll take to get their new factory set up and what its capacity will be. Using their Cold War era higher end cruise missiles is a waste, since those missiles are meant to sink carriers, not be thrown at heavy concrete buildings.

source: https://twitter.com/MassDara/status/1634300311744438272