screwdriver

Russia has used its ground-launched 9M729 cruise missile to strike targets in Ukraine multiple times in recent months. This is the conclusion of Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, and it also tallies with reports from independent analysts who have been tracking the use of the missile, the original deployment of which led to the United States walking away from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces, or INF, Treaty in 2019.

“Russia’s use of the INF-banned 9M729 against Ukraine in the past months demonstrates Putin’s disrespect to the United States and President Trump’s diplomatic efforts to end Russia’s war against Ukraine,” Sybiha said.

Sybiha’s comments provide the first confirmation that Russia has used the 9M729 missile — known to NATO as the SSC-8 Screwdriver — in combat.

Another, unnamed Ukrainian senior official told Reuters that Russia had fired the 9M729 against targets in Ukraine 23 times since August 21 of this year. The same source said that the missile had been launched on two other occasions since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022; it is not immediately clear if these were also combat launches, but a combat evaluation is a strong possibility.

Notably, the Kremlin had, on August 4, said it would no longer limit where it deploys nuclear-capable missiles with ranges in excess of the former INF Treaty. That would suggest something of a change in policy, publicly at least, prior to the more regular combat employment of the 9M729.

According to Reuters, quoting another unnamed military source, one of the 9M729 missiles fired by Russia, on October 5 of this year, flew over 1,200 kilometers (746 miles) before hitting a target in Ukraine.

The range is significant, since it was this factor that the United States argued put the 9M729 in breach of the INF Treaty, which put a limit of 500 kilometers (310 miles) on ground-launched missiles, nuclear or conventional.

If the military source’s information is accurate, then it would confirm that, as expected, the 9M729 is able to fly far beyond the now-defunct INF Treaty limits.

As to the veracity of the Ukrainian comments on the use of the 9M729, Douglas Barrie, Senior Fellow for Military Aerospace at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), told TWZ that he considered them to be plausible.

“If you think what the Russians have been doing elsewhere in terms of their weapons, the things that they have had in the locker and wanted to test, then you can see why they would want to use it,” Barrie said.

For its part, Russia has always denied that the 9M729 violated the now-defunct nuclear arms control treaty. At the same time, it accused the United States of violating the same treaty through the construction of Aegis Ashore missile defense sites in Europe, which it argues can be used to fire the BGM-109 Tomahawk land attack cruise missile, something that U.S. officials deny.

According to the Missile Threat website produced at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, the 9M729 can actually hit targets as far away as 2,500 kilometers (1,553 miles). Meanwhile, Douglas Barrie at the IISS says that he assesses the missile to have a likely range at least in excess of 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles).

There is some evidence that backs up the claims of the 9M729’s use in Ukraine.

Ukrainian officials provided Reuters with images of debris after a Russian attack on the Ukrainian village of Lapaiivka on October 5, which purportedly involved the 9M729. This struck a residential building, killing four people, at a distance of over 600 kilometers (373 miles) from the Russian border.

Reportedly, these images include two missile fragments that were marked 9M729.

These images were reviewed by Jeffrey Lewis, Distinguished Scholar of Global Security at Middlebury College, who agreed that they were consistent with the 9M729’s expected appearance. In particular, the missile body and engine, as well as the distinct markings, pointed to the 9M729, according to Lewis’s analysis.

The Kremlin has not commented on the alleged use of the 9M729.

Russia only publicly acknowledged the existence of the 9M729 in November 2018, though it reportedly entered development sometime in the mid-2000s.

In 2019, Russia publicly displayed the launch canisters for the 9M729 and its associated transporter erector launcher, or TEL, and offered some details about the complete system.

At that time, Russia said that the 9M729 featured an improved guidance system and a larger warhead compared to the older 9M728, known to NATO as the SSC-7 Southpaw, another weapon understood to have been used by Russia against Ukraine. Russia argued that the 9M729 was longer, heavier, and actually had less range than its predecessor. The new TEL can also carry four missiles, while the older vehicle associated with the 9M728/SSC-7 could only fire two before needing to reload.

Russia has said that the 9M729 has a range of just less than 300 miles, which would be clearly contradicted by the latest information from Ukraine, provided it is accurate.

The more regular employment of the 9M729 would provide Russia with another cruise missile option for striking Ukraine. Up until now, it has primarily relied on the air-launched Kh-101 cruise missile, as well as the Kalibr, which can be launched from surface combatants and submarines. All of these weapons, 9M728 and 9M729 included, are subsonic.

However, compared to other land-based options, the 9M729 offers Russia the advantage that it can be launched from locations deeper inside Russia. It is also mobile, meaning that it is relatively easy to relocate and to conceal, so it can be fired from different locations and axes, making it harder for already hard-pressed Ukrainian air defenses to deal with.

There are several other reasons why Russia might now be using the 9M729.

It could be that numbers of the Kh-101 and Kalibr are running low, with Russia’s military-industrial complex, hampered by Western sanctions, which especially affect high-technology components of the kind that precision-guided weapons rely on, unable to backfill the arsenal sufficiently. Existing 9M729 rounds would provide another option to boost stocks of standoff weapons.

Secondly, there is the issue of signaling to Ukraine’s allies in the West.

The reported use of the 9M729 comes as Kyiv pushes for the United States to supply it with Tomahawk cruise missiles. Like the 9M729, these would be ground-launched weapons and would be able to strike targets deep inside Russia with a very high degree of precision. Unlike the 9M729, the Tomahawk was not outlawed under the INF Treaty, since, at that time, it was only sea-launched.

As far as Kyiv is concerned, having access to weapons like the Tomahawk would put additional pressure on Moscow to end its war in Ukraine.

Russian officials, including Putin, have warned that supplying Ukraine with Tomahawks would be a dangerous escalation.

Russian employment of the 9M729 also serves as a message to NATO nations in Europe, most of which fall well within its assumed range.

In that sense, employing the 9M729 also serves to send a clear message to the West that Russia won’t bow to pressure, especially over the conflict in Ukraine. Other examples include recent tests of high-profile nuclear-capable weapons like the Poseidon nuclear-powered, nuclear-tipped, ultra-long-endurance torpedo, which you can read about here, and the Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile, discussed here.

Another new weapon, the Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile, has also been used against Ukraine by Russia. Today, Ukraine claimed that its security service and military intelligence destroyed one of these missile systems during a covert operation at the Kapustin Yar testing range, in the Astrakhan region of southern Russia.

In the United States, meanwhile, President Donald Trump issued a statement this week saying he “instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis. That process will begin immediately.” The reason, Trump explained, was because of “other countries [sic] testing programs.”

The exact meaning of this statement remains unclear, but the possible implications are something we have discussed in detail.

At this point, we still don’t know with certainty that Russia is now using the 9M729 cruise missile against Ukrainian targets. However, considering its employment of other long-range weapons in the conflict, and the Kremlin’s ongoing efforts to send threatening signals toward Europe as Washington seeks a peace settlement, it certainly seems to fit that pattern.

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