[rsj_hn]

Correct, the S-300 is a sophisticated missile designed to intercept highly maneuverable airplanes that have a number of defenses. The idea that you would shoot such an expensive missile at a fixed ground target - in this case, a farm along the Polish border, where it hit a tractor and killed the tractor driver -- is crazy, and of course completely incompatible with the "Russia running out of missiles" narrative.

What is much more likely is the simple explanation that these are AA missiles that Ukraine fired, trying to intercept a Russian missile or drone, and they missed their target, hitting the farm.

That an AA missile failed to intercept and caused damage to infrastructure is completely normal for AA systems and has happened several times before -- an AA missile missed its target and hit an apartment building in Kharkov and another hit an office complex in Kiev. AA systems don't have a 100% interception rate, and those that don't intercept fall and cause damage in inconvenient places.

As is usually the case, the simplest explanation is often the most plausible, whereas the most inflammatory explanation is what is promoted in media. Note that even Poland is urging people to remain calm and wait for an investigation, so they are actually more responsible than Western media.

[celsoazevedo]

> completely incompatible with the "Russia running out of missiles" narrative

I haven't seen anyone saying that Russia is running out of S-300. Other precision systems yes, but not S-300, which would explain the reports of them using S-300 to target land targets both in Kharkiv and Kherson.

No idea what happened here btw, just pointing out why they might be using them. Also, mistakes and malfunctions happen.

[rsj_hn]

There are no credible reports of S-300 being used to target any land system. The S-300 would be a very poor missile to use this way, and it would make no sense to waste it blowing up unimportant targets, when Russia is still sending large waves of cheaper-to-produce missiles at strategically important systems like power plants.

You would need to believe that an expensive missile is intentionally being used to blow up a city intersection somewhere or an office building while cheaper missiles are being used to knock out transformers and military barracks. That fails basic internal consistency checks.

There are, however, plenty of credible reports of Ukrainian S-300s damaging random infrastructure in these areas (and in other areas), always in the aftermath of drone attacks and cruise missile attacks when the AA systems are activated. The randomness of the targets and their distance from any strategic target is evidence that they are AA misses that missed.

Then we have the physical evidence, that this is an S-300 missile.

[celsoazevedo]

The reports of S-300 being used to target land targets originated from the same sources saying that a fragment found is from a S-300 missile. It's people on Twitter and Telegram, some of them "analysts" or people that seem to have sources in the different militaries (at least the ones that are usually right about what they say). I'm not saying that they are credible sources, but it's not like the picture of the S-300 fragment was released by an official source. We should keep this in mind when deciding what to (or not to) believe.

I think it's a mistake to assume they wouldn't use S-300 because of its cost. It also doesn't make any sense to use expensive missiles to hit kid playgrounds, but it happened before Russia had cheap swarms of Iranian drones. It doesn't make sense to launch salvos of not very precise rockets from helicopters, but that's exactly what both sides are doing for close-ish combat support. Point is, and without knowing for sure if Russia is using S-300 for land targets or not, both sides have used expensive weapons even when it didn't make sense financially.

On a side note, many of today's strikes seem to have used Kh-101 (edit: I meant to write 3M-54, not Kh-101) cruise missiles, which are not cheap ( https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/yw737b/the_m... ). They're using expensive stuff too, not just "cheaper-to-produce missiles".

Regarding the damage from S-300 systems, yes, I've seen videos from Ukraine and Russia (Belgorod) where air defence damages some stuff. I agree that it's possible that what hit Poland was an Ukrainian S-300 or a mix of a Russian missile/drone and Ukrainian S-300. And yes, it could be a Russian missile too... even if it was not done on purpose, shit happens sometimes.

I'm not a weapons expert or have special sources, so this is where I'll leave the thread. I just wanted to point out that the "running out of missiles" narrative was about other weapon systems, not about S-300s, of which they probably still have lots because it was an important part of the Soviet Union air defence.

[bryanlarsen]

British Military Intelligence is a credible source claiming Russia is using S-300 to attack land targets: https://defence-blog.com/russia-uses-soviet-era-air-defense-...

[rsj_hn]

British Military Intelligence is a credible source in the same way the Ukraine MOD is a credible source - they are participants in the conflict and have a propaganda mission to fulfill. In that case, you must believe that Russia was shelling its own nuclear power plant and that a Ukrainian woman destroyed a drone with a pickle jar.

If that's credible to you, knock yourself out, I am not going to try to convince you, but it's not credible to people in most of the world, who would consider, for example, non-aligned sources such as Indian/Mexican/Brazilian to be neutral, rather than looking to nations that are arming/subsidizing one side of this conflict as being neutral.

I have lived through a lot of wars, and seen a lot of cheerleading for wars, especially in Western media. I remember the stories of Iraquis taking incubators out of Kuwait, of viagra being given to Libya's soldiers to rape women, etc. Western media and government institutions are often a spin machine for war - not all, there are anti-war outlets and reporters doing good work, but when you are talking about ministry of defense statements, you don't look for nations waging proxy wars as sources of reliable info about the conflict in question.

I would apply the same level of credibility to Russian MoD statements as I would to British MoD.

[celsoazevedo]

> but it's not credible to people in most of the world, who would consider, for example, Indian/Mexican/Brazilian media as being credible, but not Western media as they are influenced by governments that are arming/subsidizing one side of this conflict.

If we apply the same thinking to those countries, why would the Indian media be credible when they rely on Russia for a lot of military equipment and now for cheap oil? Or Brazil when they buy Russian helicopters?

I understand what you're saying [the original version of your comment], but it's hard to find credible sources when everyone has reasons to side with one side or the other. Who to trust?

[rsj_hn]

India/Brazil/Mexico trade with Russia for some goods and with the US for others. That's what makes them non-aligned -- they do business with both sides. By the way, this is like 2/3 of the global population, so you don't need to look far to find non-aligned nations.

This idea that if you are not sanctioning Russia you are not "neutral" -- basically a "with us or against us" view is one that non-aligned nations have historically rejected, and frankly it's not one that I subscribe to, either.

You may be interested in listening to the speech that Indonesia just gave at the G20 summit, condemning the West for this "with us or against us" attitude and refusing to take sides. Indonesia is also non-aligned, and I would give much more credence to their MoD reports than to anything coming out of the five eyes/NATO orbit, simply because Indonesia is not pushing for any outcome, nor are they trying to generate support in their domestic populations for aid packages to Ukraine. They literally have no dog in this fight, and so are much more credible.