The record What this system is, where it comes from, who operates it and which of Vigil’s modules it is relevant to — with the evidence each of those rests on.
Record
Conflict relevance
This is the catalogue's single record for this system. It is relevant to the module below; each module's Force Atlas shows how it is used there.
Operators
Russia: Carried by the Tu-95MS and Tu-160 of Long-Range Aviation; the principal air-launched cruise missile of the strike campaign, in continuous production with missiles made in 2026 identified in debris. No stock recorded.
Battlefield role
Long-range land attack from strategic bombers against fixed targets across Ukraine, launched from Russian airspace and flown at low level along evasive routes in combined salvos with Kalibr, ballistic missiles and Shahed drones.
Strengths
Very long range that lets the bombers launch far from any Ukrainian interceptor, a low-observable airframe and low-level routing, and a production line that has kept output up through sanctions — missiles manufactured in 2026 have been identified in strikes the same year.
Limitations
Subsonic and interceptable: Ukraine's Air Force reports high interception rates when the missiles are engaged, and the successive modifications — a second warhead, cluster submunitions, new navigation and a self-protection jammer — are Russia's answer to that record; a bomber fleet that Ukraine has struck at its bases; and a dependence on imported electronics documented in debris. Stock and production figures are not public.
Campaign relevance
Derived: a participant organisation in these campaigns carries a typed equipment association with this system. That is not the same as documented use of the system in the campaign itself.
- The strategic campaign against Ukraine's electricity system Since October 2022
via Aerospace Forces (VKS) (Documented, high confidence)
Visual identification
A long, slender missile with a flattened, faceted body, folding wings and a ventral engine that lowers after launch; carried on rotary launchers inside the Tu-95MS and Tu-160 and under the wings of the Tu-95MS.
Documented conflict use
In documented use since the first day of the full-scale invasion, through the 2022–23 energy campaign and in every large combined strike since, including the 8 July 2024 strike that hit the Okhmatdyt children's hospital in Kyiv; Ukrainian authorities report the type in per-strike accounting and have documented the four modification stages and the 2026 production dates of recovered missiles. Interception rates published by the Ukrainian Air Force are theirs, and this record does not restate them as measures of system performance.
Branch & service operators
- Aerospace Forces (VKS) Documented
Assessed as of — 2026-05 Last reviewed — 2026-09-28