The Russian cruise missiles used in Thursday’s deadly attack on Ukraine were produced this year with western components, according to Ukrainian authorities, underscoring Moscow’s ability to circumvent sanctions.
Photographs of missile debris from the Kyiv apartment block strike that killed at least 24 people appear to show parts of a Kh-101, one of Russia’s most advanced cruise missiles used in air strikes against Ukraine. The images were examined by Ukrainian officials, an independent expert and the FT.
Vladyslav Vlasiuk, Ukraine’s top sanctions official, told the FT that all the Kh-101 cruise missiles that struck Kyiv and were evaluated by Ukrainian experts — including the one that targeted an apartment block in the capital — had been manufactured in the second quarter of 2026.
“Each missile contained more than 100 western-made components,” Vlasiuk wrote on X on Thursday.
An identical Kh-101 missile to the one that struck the apartment building, examined after an attack on January 20, contained chips from US brands such as Texas Instruments, AMD and Kyocera AVX, as well as Germany’s Harting Technology Group, the Netherlands’ Nexperia and others, according to a document provided to the FT by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office.
Putin accused of surrounding himself with same 'actors' at series of events
Several items bore serial numbers indicating that they were made in 2024 and 2025 — long after the imposition of sanctions. Several Chinese- and Taiwanese-made components were also found in the January debris.
The Ukrainian Air Force said on Thursday that 35 of the 56 missiles fired by Russia in the largest combined onslaught of the war over a 24-hour period were Kh-101 cruise missiles. The missile, which is launched from the underside of an aircraft, has a variant, the Kh-102, which carries a nuclear warhead.
Zelenskyy said Russia also launched more than 1,560 drones against Ukrainian cities between Wednesday and Thursday, marking the largest combined missile and drone attack of the war.
Russia’s defence ministry said it launched a “massed attack using high-precision, land-fired, air-launched and sea-launched long-range weapons”, including hypersonic Kinzhal missiles as well as drones, on Ukrainian defence facilities and infrastructure.
It claimed the strikes, launched after a US-brokered three-day ceasefire expired on Tuesday, were a response to Ukrainian attacks. The ministry said all the missiles hit their intended targets and did not comment on the strike on the apartment building.
Russia has stepped up its Kh-101 manufacturing since President Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Its production in 2024 was eight times higher than before the war, the FT reported. At the time, Russian forces had destroyed a children’s hospital in Kyiv with a Kh-101 missile that used western components.
While Russia has massively expanded its capacity to produce missiles, the country remains reliant on western-designed goods in some key fields, including microelectronics. As many of these goods are covered by US export controls, many of these items are now made in China.
The export rules are difficult to enforce: after the items have been sold by western companies, they can be resold by third parties to Russian buyers. Some components found in Russian missiles have also proven to be counterfeits, in which Chinese factories have made clones of western items.
Catholics across the world pray for Pope Benedict XVI as his body lies in state
Fabian Hoffmann, an expert on missile technology at the University of Oslo, examined the photographs and said the debris resembled that of a Kh-101 missile, “based on what I believe is a wreck of a turbofan engine and the airframe”.
“Considering the damage profile, it either was a ballistic missile or a cruise missile,” he said. “No chance this was a drone.”
Photographs of confirmed Kh-101 missile debris and publicly available images of its engine also appear identical to the debris in the photographs shared with the FT.
It is unclear what the Russian military was aiming for, if not the apartment building. Russian forces have deliberately targeted civilian infrastructure throughout the war. But Kh-101 missiles can also be knocked off course by electronic warfare.
“I’d say this was either a rogue missile, a deliberate targeting decision or a Russian intelligence failure,” Hoffmann said. He said that jamming could have played a role. “Alternatively, a systemic failure that prevents the guidance system from functioning properly” could have been a factor, he added.
Ukraine’s defence ministry said this week that its air defences had intercepted about 88 per cent of the Kh-101, Kh-55 and Kh-555 cruise missiles launched by Russia since the start of 2026.
But knocking them down had become more difficult due to technological modifications made by the Russians to make them stealthier and deadlier, the ministry said.
The ministry said Russia had begun to “integrate a second warhead by reducing fuel tank capacity” in the Kh-101 missiles; equip them with “cluster munitions with zirconium elements” to cause greater damage to targets; upgrade their navigation system; and outfit them with new elements to prevent jamming.
As Kyiv awoke to a quieter sunrise on Friday, the capital observed a day of mourning to honor the victims of the apartment attack. Visiting the site of the strike on Friday morning, Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said that three children were among the civilians confirmed killed; another 48 people were injured.
One of the victims was 12-year-old Liubava Yakovleva, whose father died defending Ukraine at the front lines, Svyrydenko said.
At the site alongside the prime minister, Zelenskyy called on Ukraine’s western partners to apply more “pressure” on Russia to end its war.
“The world must remember the price Ukraine pays every day so that Russian aggression does not spread to other nations,” he said.
Editor-in-Chief
Read more similar news:
Comments:
comments powered by Disqus
