Ukrainian-made Sapsan missile system 70% ready, says official
The Ukrainian-made Sapsan long-range missile system is 70% complete but its finalization requires approximately $500 million, Ihor Krol, the head of the Western Ukrainian Association of Defense and Industrial Complex Enterprises, said on on June 18.
Ukraine decided to develop the Sapsan system, inheriting the Borysfen project from the 1990s, back in 2006. The system, with the export name Hrim-2 (Thunder-2 — ed.), remained at the development stage until Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014.
In 2016, Saudi Arabia reportedly held negotiations with Ukraine regarding the purchase of the system. Two years later, Ukraine presented a prototype of the Hrim system.
In February 2021, then-defense minister Andriy Taran announced that the Sapsan missile system was 80% complete. However, Krol stated that the Sapsan system is only 70% complete.
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He added that system's range is expected to be capable of hitting targets at a distance of 400 km.
"We could test it in Ukraine," he said.
"Why not? There are no issues. The only challenge is to complete production entirely.”
Defense minister Oleksii Reznikov announced on June 8 that Ukraine will be capable of initiating the production of its own long-range missiles with a range of up to 1,000 kilometers and beyond.
Due to the full-scale war initiated by Russia in 2022, part of the work to develop Sapsan is being carried out abroad. According to Krol, however, the percentage of Western components in the Sapsan system is "not very significant." He added that if the industry worked vigorously, Ukraine could produce 20 such systems per year.
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