Forbes Ukraine has assessed the apparent cost of yesterday’s massive shelling of Ukrainian cities to Russia's budget. The total value of the missiles fired by the Russian army has been estimated at $400-700m, according to the publication.
The media outlet, citing statements by officials at the time of publication, wrote that 84 cruise missiles were fired at Ukraine in total, while 24 drones were involved in the strikes. The Ukrainian army shot down more than half of the missiles (43), in addition to 13 UAVs. Forbes estimated the cost of the fired missiles within a broad potential price range, as the exact number of missiles of each type is unknown. According to the data cited by the publication, Kh-101, Kh-555, Kalibr, Iskander, Tornado-S and S-300 missiles were all fired at Ukrainian cities on October 10.
The journalists used the following cost estimates: Kh-101 ($13 million), Kalibr ($6.5 million), Iskander ($3 million), Onyx ($1.25 million), Kh-22 ($1 million), Tochka-U ($0.3 million). The total value of all the drones launched on October 10 came in at several million dollars, according to the publication.
In the first two months of the war alone, Russia fired $7.5bn worth of missiles at Ukraine, Forbes Ukraine wrote in late April. That totals more than 1,300 missiles, as quoted by Ukraine's Deputy Defence Minister Anna Malyar at the time.
On the morning of October 10, Russia began shelling Ukrainian territory – the attacks targeted different cities, including the capital, Kyiv. According to the latest data from the Ukrainian General Staff, Russia fired a total of 87 cruise missiles at Ukraine, 46 of which were shot down by the Ukrainian Army. As of the morning of 11 October, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine reported that 19 people had been killed and 105 wounded as a result of the two days of shelling. There is no electricity in 300 Ukrainian settlements as a result of the assault.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called the strikes a response to the bombing of the Crimean bridge, and said that Russia was targeting “energy, military and communications facilities.” Russia’s missiles have struck critical infrastructure, residential buildings and playgrounds. Russian propagandists and officials, meanwhile, began openly cheering the missile strikes – in spite of the casualties and deaths that these attacks have caused.
Military expert Pavel Luzin told The Insider that Russia had been stockpiling cruise missiles for months prior to the attack on October 10. There are no stocks of these missiles for new strikes of this kind, said the expert: “It is impossible to ramp up production or buy missiles from other countries for large-scale attacks like the one on October 10, neither organizationally, nor technically, nor technologically. Only less advanced missiles or Iranian drones could be fired, but generally speaking, they wouldn’t affect anything.”