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The administration of United States President Donald Trump had approved the sale of 3,350 especially-designed, long-range missiles to Ukraine, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on August 24.
The sale will be a part of a $850 million arms package largely funded by European countries and includes other items, according to the newspaper, which noted that the deliveries of the missile, officially codenamed Extended Range Attack Munition (ERAM), should begin within around six weeks.
WSJ said that approval of the sale was delayed until after Trump held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. It also revealed that Ukraine will have to get the approval of the Pentagon every time it wants to use the new missile.
While WSJ provided some details on the ERAM, a closer look at the missile came last month from Aviation Week, which reviewed documents on the project released in open access.
The ERAM is basically a hybrid of a guided aerial bomb and a small-sized cruise missile. It has a 260-kilogram warhead, with armor-piercing or high-explosive action. The estimated range is 463 kilometers, the minimum speed is Mach 0.6 or 740 kilometers per hour.
It’s worth noting here that the range of the missile is just enough to allow Ukraine to target the Russian capital, Moscow.
According to Aviation Week, developers expect the ERAM to show hit accuracy within ten meters of the target and its guidance systems to operate normally under active electronic warfare suppression.
Both WSJ and Aviation Week said that the missile will be launched from air, without specifying if it will be deployed from the Ukrainian Air Force American-made F-16 fighters jets only, or also integrated on newly-delivered French-made Mirage 2000 fighter jets and remaining Soviet-era warplanes.
Interestingly, the documents reviewed by Aviation Week lists the U.S. Air Force as the customer, and says that the inquiry for development was submitted on January 31, 2024.
However, the most unusual part is the development timeline and production pace: mass manufacture is slated to start no later than 24 months after the contract has been awarded, with an expected annual output of up to 1,000 units. This suggests that the U.S. will not be able to fulfill the sale to Ukraine within weeks as reported by WSJ.
The report on the missile sale came just days after Ukraine unveiled a locally-made, ground-launched cruise missile dubbed Flamingo with an alleged range of 3,000 kilometers and a warhead weighing around 1,150 kg. Kiev said that it was planning to produce seven such missiles a day in two months.
These recent developments appear to be a part of efforts meant to put more pressure on Russia as it prepares to engage in higher-level talks with Ukraine.
Both the ERAM and Flamingo should be considered a serious threat. Nevertheless, there are grounds to question the specifications of these missiles, and the projected production.
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don’t laugh, it’s probably all they have left…
why does ukraine still have operational military aircraft? why are the russians unable to achieve air superiority. the ukrainians are using f-16 in the vicinity of the dnr, why is russian air defense not shooting them down? all of it very strange.
they could easily vanya but the kremlin is still trying to keep the civilian body count down as western reporters just love to show ukrainian civilians being injured by russia.
vicinity of the dnr or fairford gb? if ukrainian media said so, i’d rather believe in hollywood tales.
when coke is out chumpo sells copium. deal is deal.
when you fool around for years with white glove rules the enemy is bound to develop many new weapon systems to attack you with.
of course but russia has gained huge diplomatic support from many nations around the world and that positive influence is spreading.
all hail the flatulent orange man of peace.
we inferior species waste $$$humiliated by russia
i bet ukraine is going after a bunch of russian bridges on the don, the volga and the russian part of the dnieper. russia should do the same to the ukrainian side.
germans stated last year that all critical infrastructure and all economic infrastructure inside russia, including energy production, energy distribution, and of course oil refineries were legitimate targets.
they also stayed bridges were dual use so legitimate targets and all ports and air ports too.
they explained how taurus could make the task doable.
the germans were then reminded of oreshnik and the shift has now gone to this uk made “flamingo” doodlebug reassembled in ukraine
this should help the cut in interest rates by the u.$. federal reserve bank just announced this past friday buying it’s own debt in order to facilitate these purchases?…