On the night of 2 September, Russia launched a massive missile attack on Kyiv. Air defences within the capital destroyed more than a dozen cruise missiles and about a dozen ballistic missiles, as well as an attack drone. These are preliminary reports of X-101 and KN-24/Iskander-M missiles. The debris fell in different parts of the capital, and the building of the capital’s university, the Interregional Academy of Personnel Management, was damaged.
[Kommersant] talked to aviation expert Kostyantyn Kryvolap about the causes and consequences of today’s shelling and what the enemy’s goal was.
The danger is that the area of damage is significantly increasing. The aviation expert notes that the attack on 2 September was very fast.
“Ballistic missiles arrived almost simultaneously, and cruise missiles came almost simultaneously. Russians have already used such tactics, in particular, on 8 July during the attack on Okhmatdyt. And given that Korean missiles are quite unclear in terms of use, we see a lot of fragments, which indicates a terrorist goal of Russia,” Konstantin Krivolap
The X-101, which was also used by the enemy, is a dangerous missile. The Russians have upgraded it by using a cluster warhead, which has also doubled in weight to 800 kilograms. Russia also used a large amount of allegedly North Korean ballistics during the dawn attacks.
“This is a purely terrorist and psychological goal. The North Korean ballistics used today cannot be used for accurate strikes at all. It cannot be adapted for military purposes,” says Kryvolap
Russia is testing North Korean missiles in Ukraine before mass production
The attack on Ukraine on 2 September was expected, because we understand how long it takes the enemy to reconnoiter the route, Roman Svitan, a retired colonel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, tells 
exclusively. “Such attacks take 5-7 days to prepare. We saw a combined attack: cruise and ballistic missiles.
“Most likely, North Korean specialists and engineers are refining the KN-23 missile. It is still crude. They are trying to improve it in the face of our electronic warfare systems and air defence systems. I would call it firing to refine the production part of the missile. That is, when launching it into mass production as such. The so-called field tests”, – Roman Svitan
As for the Iskanders, this is a standard work of the enemy, Svitan notes. He says there were several dozen pre-reconnaissance targets, and the Russians were calculating targets that they could work on or somehow bypass and launch the next stage.
How many North Korean missiles does Russia have?
In winter, there was a contract for the supply of 30 missiles from North Korea. The summer delivery of these weapons to Russia is estimated at 50 missiles, says aviation expert Konstantin Krivolap.
“The Russians are short of missiles, they have eaten all the strategic stockpiles they have been restoring all this time, and all that they have managed to produce. I can’t guarantee that there are no more missiles, because the Russians produce 30-40 missiles a month,” Kryvolap said
Further, the aviation expert concludes, we should probably expect drone attacks.
On 2 September, Russia fired 35 missiles of various types, including 16 ballistic missiles and 23 drones, at the territory of Ukraine. Ukraine’s air defence forces shot down, in particular, 9 of the 16 ballistic missiles; 13 of the 14 cruise missiles; and 20 of the 23 shaheds.
Author – Anastasia Fedor