Executive Summary
- Ukraine introduces heavy cruise missile: Dubbed the Flamingo, Kyiv’s new indigenously produced cruise missile boasts a one-ton warhead and an 1,800-mile range.
- Battlefield assessment: The Russian military maintained an offensive footing across the front lines, with a focus on pressing its advantage in Pokrovsk.
- Drone warfare update: Ukrainian drone warfare systems struck key Russian targets, including railways and hydrocarbon facilities.
1. Battlefield Assessment
Ukraine withstood a steady increase in Russian drone attacks amid heightened combat activity across the front lines.
The Russian military continued to focus on Pokrovsk. The Kupiansk and Siversk sectors and the town of Toretsk also remained significant flashpoints. Russia’s manpower advantage continued to produce territorial gains, albeit only at the tactical level this week.
Meanwhile Ukraine continued to press its own advantages. On August 14 Ukrainian drone warfare formations demonstrated their skill in high-precision operations, hitting a Russian cargo vessel, the Port Olya-4, in the Caspian Sea. The vessel, owned by the shipping company MG-Flot LLC, has been instrumental in transporting Shahed drones and other weapons from Iran to Russia. Hitting a moving target at sea hundreds of miles away is no easy task. So the strike highlights Kyiv’s development of its long-range reconnaissance-strike capabilities.
Ukraine also continued its campaign against Russian railway nodes, an effort that could significantly disrupt the Kremlin’s logistics and troop movements. Additionally, Kyiv continued to hit Russian hydrocarbon facilities, including a gas terminal in Saint Petersburg and an oil refinery in Samara. Ukrainian drones also hit a Rosneft facility in Ryazan, a Lukoil refinery in Volgograd Oblast, and the Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery in Rostov Oblast. Ukraine’s strikes on Russia’s hydrocarbon infrastructure have disrupted at least 17 percent of Russia’s refining capacity and cost the Kremlin an estimated $74.1 billion.
2. Ukraine’s Arsenal Continues to Evolve
Fire Point, a Ukrainian defense firm, has introduced a new ground-launched land-attack cruise missile. Dubbed the Flamingo, the projectile boasts a distinctive pink paint job that belies its destructive potential. The cruise missile has an operational range of approximately 1,800 miles and can deliver a large warhead of over one ton. Ukrainian press reports suggest that the missile has already made its combat debut and struck targets deep inside Russia.
Ukraine’s production capabilities will dictate whether this new asset will make a major difference in a prolonged, high-tempo armed conflict. Fire Point currently produces one Flamingo per day, but plans to increase its output to seven missiles per day (or about 2,500 per year) by October 2025.
Available visuals from testing reveal many of the features that make the Flamingo such a potent weapon. It possesses a rail-launch system with a booster that operates during its first phase and a jet engine that powers the missile during flight. Open-source intelligence suggests that the Flamingo utilizes Ivchenko AI-25TL turbofan engines, which are also used in the Aero L-39 jet trainer aircraft.
The missile relies on the Global Positioning System (GPS) as its primary guidance mechanism. Ukrainian press sources report that the missile also features controlled reception pattern antennas (CPRAs) that help it overcome electronic warfare. The Flamingo lacks terrain contour matching (TERCOM) navigation and stealth technology, features of advanced modern cruise missiles. But its large warhead ensures a high kill rate if it can reach its target.
At this point, it is unclear how effectively the Flamingo will be able to penetrate Russia’s ground-based air defenses. Therefore Ukrainian forces will likely need to launch the Flamingo as part of a strike package alongside drones and other assets to saturate and overwhelm Russia’s interceptor systems.
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