The Russian Iskander-M missile was reported by the Ukrainian Army to have very poor combat performance, leading to Moscow having to increase its attack with Kalibr and Kh-101 missiles.
Russia’s Iskander-M ballistic missile has been used to hit targets in Ukraine since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine War, but according to reports from Ukrainian Army, the probability of hitting the target accurately of the Iskander-M is only 40%.
The representative of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine also confirmed that due to the poor performance of the Iskander-M accuracy, Russia had to rely on air-launched cruise missiles such as the Kh-101 and Kalibr which is fired from sea to achieve desired effect.
The above mentioned information of course needs to be verified, but this is not the first time that there has been reports about the inaccuracy of Russian tactical ballistic missiles, the Karabakh war is a good and recent example.
Despite Russia’s statement about denying the use of the Iskander Ballistic Missile during the Karabakh war, the Azerbaijani side found fragments of this weapon on the battlefield.
There is still a controversy that whether the Russian made Iskander-E tactical ballistic missile in service with the Armenian Army was used during the Karabakh war or not.
Although the prime minister of armenia, Mr. Nikol Pashinyan confirmed that the army of his country used the Iskander-E missiles to attack the positions of the Azerbaijani armed forces, but the results of the missile strikes were very poor.
According to Mr. Nikol, up to 90% of Iskander-E missiles after launch didn’t explode, also they fell very far from their targets, for example if the missile was targeted to strike a enemy military airport, the missile fall six kilometers far away from the airport, in a residential area.
Regarding the above mentioned situation, the Russian Ministry of Defense has denied the information given by the Armenian side, saying that no Iskander-E was used in the conflict. Moscow believes that Armenia claims are only intended to justify its military defeat with Azerbaijan and to find an object to blame.
Russia also said that the weapons it sold to Armenia were of high quality, the fact that they were not fully functional was entirely due to the error of the weapon operater. In response to Russian Objections, the Armenian press published images of the Iskander-E tactical ballistic missile used in the Karabakh War.
According to the press released images, it can be easily seen in one image that the Armenian Army used a self-propelled launcher MZKT-7930 with 9M723 missiles belonging to the Iskander-E complex, not the Tochka-U that the Armenian Army still uses.
Some interesting details came out when the Azerbaijan Mine Action Agency announced that they had found fragments of the Iskander-E Missiles in the Karabakh territory. These missile remains were found in the city of Shusha, during post-war mine clearance and explosives removal work.
The Azerbaijani authorities have released many pictures of the fragments found, specifically showing the tail section of the missile and numbers marked in Russian language on the missile.