According to information published on its Twitter account, on February 10, 2023, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, reported that two Kalibr cruise missiles launched by Russian navy ships against Ukraine entered the airspace of Romania.
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The Kalibr is a Russian-made naval cruise missile that can be launched from ships or submarines with a range of up to 2,600 km. (Picture source Youtube footage Screen Shot )
Citing the Ukrainian General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, on February 10, 2023, Russian armed forces launched massive missile attacks on the Ukrainian territory including 71 Kalibr and Kh-101 cruise missiles, up to 35 S-300 surface-to-air missiles as well as 7 Shahed kamikaze drones.
The Ukrainian air defense forces shot down 61 cruise missiles and 5 drones. Reporting information from the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, the Kalibr missiles were launched by Russian navy ships deployed in the Black Sea.
Kalibr cruise missiles have been widely used by Russian forces since the beginning of the War in Ukraine, and the invasion of the country on 24 February 2022. The invasion started with the launching of 30 cruise missiles, targetting command and control points, air bases, and air-defense batteries. The missiles were likely fired by the Buyan-class corvettes, Admiral Grigorovich-class frigates, and Kilo-class submarines of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
On January 21, 2023, eleven vessels of the Russian navy were deployed in the Black Sea, including five ships able to fire Kalibr cruise missiles, according to information published by the Ukrainian navy intelligence services.
The core of Russia’s conventional long-range strike capabilities are provided by air and sea-launched cruise missiles, namely, the Kh-50, AS-23A/B (Kh-101/Kh-102), and SS-N-30 Kalibr with firing ranges of 1,500, 4,500 and 2,000 km respectively.
An enlarged derivative of the Kalibr, the Kalibr-M, is also under development and will feature an increased range of 4,500 km, and due to enter service in the mid-2020s.15 It will equip surface ships and submarines, with a ground-launched variant also under development.
Kalibr (NATO reporting name: SS-N-27 Sizzler) is a Russian cruise missile engineered and produced by the Yekaterinburg-based Novator Design Bureau (part of Almaz-Antey defense manufacturer). The Russian armed forces currently operate shipborne Kalibr-NK and submarine-launched Kalibr-PL missile modifications.
The Kalibr can be launched from a surface ship using a Vertical Launching System (VLS) or by submarines using torpedo tubes. The range of the Kalibr against ground targets (as of 2012) is 2,600 km, and against sea targets, the range is 375 km. According to other reports, the 3M14 has a range of 2,000 to 2,600 km with thermonuclear warheads.
The Kalibr cruise missile can be armed with a fragmentation-fuzed or penetrating high explosive warhead with TNT equivalent of 200-450 kg, or a tactical thermonuclear warhead of 50 kt.
