Ukrainian air defence shoots down an X-32 missile produced by Russia in 2023

Ukrainian air defence shoots down an X-32 missile produced by Russia in 2023

Ukrainian air defence shot down the X-32 supersonic cruise missile, which the Russian military industry produced in 2023. The portal "Military" writes about this.

It is reported that the X-32 was hit by an anti-aircraft missile. The published photographs show fragments of the rocket, which show holes from the destructive elements in the right wing console.

X-32 missile

The X-32 is a deep modernization of the X-22 air-to-ground missile, which has been developed since the late 80s by the Raduga design bureau.

After the collapse of the USSR, work was suspended several times. Development was resumed in the mid-90s and tested in 1998.

In the future, there were no funds to modernize the planned Tu-22M3 carrier aircraft. Testing continued only in 2008, when the Tu-22M3 was converted.

Tests of the aircraft with missiles took place at the end of July 2013. During the flight there were also missile launches.

At the end of 2016, the X-32 missile was officially put into service and it was planned to modernize 30 Tu-22M3 aircraft into Tu-22M3M.

The new missile has the same body as the X-22, but has a more powerful engine. By reducing the warhead, the fuel tanks were increased.

In addition, the deep modernization of the rocket received new protection against interference. We are talking about a noise-resistant radar-inertial guidance system with radio command correction and reference to the terrain.

The flight speed of the X-32 is Mach 3.5–4.6, and the range is 600–1000 km due to the increased tanks.