There have been mixed reports about the actual status of Russian precision-guided missiles and whether Russia still has stocks of them amid their losing invasion of Ukraine, which is about to enter its fourth month. Recent intel from the US and the UK have claimed that the Russians have burned through their own stocks of precision-guided missiles and that their arsenal is severely depleted.

“We do assess that they (Russia) are running through their precision-guided missiles at a pretty fast clip,” Pentagon Spokesman John Kirby said. “We know that in Mariupol, for instance, their use of munitions has migrated from almost all precision-guided to a significant number of what we would call dumb bombs, non-precision-guided munitions.”

Furthermore, the British Defense Ministry also stated that the Russians would likely struggle to replace their precision weaponry as it had already been expended. They concluded that the Russians were running out of precision-guided missiles as the Russian forces had been bombing Ukraine with little to no regard for civilian casualties, revealing that they may be using these “dumb bombs” that Kirby had been referring to.

The city of Rubizhne bombed by the Russian forces (Факти ICTV). Source: https://twitter.com/ICTV_Fakty/status/1527582685761257472
The city of Rubizhne was bombed by the Russian forces (Факти ICTV/Twitter))

However, Russia was quick to dispel these claims made by the West. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov stated that they should have run out of missiles in March.