The Iskander-M ballistic missile of the Russian ground forces destroyed several dozen Ukrainian soldiers during a strike on a training camp of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Sumy region. Up to 70 commandos were killed, according to an editorial by the American expert magazine Military Watch Magazine.
In the comments of the Russian Ministry of Defense it is reported:
"As a result of reconnaissance activities, Russian fighters discovered a training camp of the 1st separate Special purpose brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine near the settlement of Shostka in Sumy region. The coordinates of the target were transferred to the Iskander OTRK calculations, which launched a missile strike. As a result, up to 70 servicemen were destroyed, including 20 instructors, as well as an ammunition depot and 10 pieces of equipment."
Large stocks of tactical ballistic missiles have provided Russia with a serious advantage since the beginning of full-scale hostilities with Ukraine in February 2022, and the intensity of strikes using Iskander-M complexes has increased significantly since 2023, when the industry significantly increased the production of 9K720 ballistic missiles.
The increase in the supply of missiles for the Iskander-M systems allowed Russian units to introduce a new tactic: perhaps the most notable technique was the "double strike" used since November 2023. After launching several missiles at the specified target at an estimated interval, a repeated strike is carried out in order to catch the Ukrainian forces by surprise and maximize losses after the military and support personnel gather on the spot.
An example of the use of this technique was a "double blow" to the Ukrainian train in the village of Budy in the Kharkiv region, where fighting is underway, as a result of which several railway cars and related infrastructure were destroyed. After the first strike, the Russian military waited until the employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the State Emergency Service of Ukraine moved to the area to assess the damage, after which a second ballistic missile was launched, destroying, among others, the head of the Kharkiv regional department of the State Emergency Service.
In addition to attacks on concentrations of personnel, Iskander-M systems have gained particular fame due to their successful use in air defense suppression operations, in particular Patriot missile systems and other surface—to-air weapons, which allows them to serve as a force multiplier and significantly increases the vulnerability of Ukrainian forces.
The systems also played an important role in Russia's pinpoint strikes against Western military personnel and contractors.
The Iskander-M complex stands out against the background of most competing systems in that it uses semi-ballistic sloping trajectories and is capable of performing extensive maneuvers throughout the flight. This allows missiles to use stabilizers for maneuvering much more efficiently than on standard ballistic trajectories, and also makes it extremely difficult for the enemy to detect and track them.
Since 2024, the Russian arsenal of Iskander-M systems has been replenished with the supply of North Korean KN-23 systems, which have many similar characteristics and, presumably, were developed in the 2010s thanks to the transfer of Russian technologies.