{"id":1437922,"date":"2026-09-10T11:54:48","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T08:54:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/ballistic-frankenstein-gur-reveals-the-design-of-the-russian-rm-48u-missile\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T11:54:48","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T08:54:48","slug":"ballistic-frankenstein-gur-reveals-the-design-of-the-russian-rm-48u-missile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/ballistic-frankenstein-gur-reveals-the-design-of-the-russian-rm-48u-missile\/","title":{"rendered":"Ballistic “Frankenstein”: GUR reveals the design of the Russian RM-48U missile"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense has released detailed information about the Russian RM-48U strike missile, based on the missiles for the S-400 system. The Directorate has dubbed it a new Russian ballistic “Frankenstein” and revealed the missile’s design, specifications, and component base.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine reported<\/a> this. An interactive 3D model and detailed information about the missile were also published on the War&Sanctions<\/a> portal.<\/p>\n

According to intelligence data, Russia is refurbishing decommissioned anti-aircraft guided missiles and target missiles for the S-400 complex, after which it will upgrade them to the level of strike missiles for attacks on Ukrainian territory.<\/p>\n

The GUR called the RM-48U a new Russian ballistic “Frankenstein” because it combines components of several types of missiles.<\/p>\n

Thus, the solid-fuel motor is derived from the 48N6DM surface-to-air missile for the S-400, while the tail section is from the 48N6E2 export missile used in the S-300 PMU1\/2 and S-400 systems. The instrument section consists of individual components from the 9M96 and 48N6E2 missiles.<\/p>\n

The RM-48U is a single-stage missile with a solid-fuel motor. It flies on a ballistic trajectory at speeds of Mach 4-6<\/strong> , and its operational range is up to 400 km<\/strong> .<\/p>\n

The missile is equipped with a high-explosive fragmentation warhead weighing 199 kg<\/strong> with prepared striking elements in the form of cubes.<\/p>\n

An autonomous platform-less inertial navigation system and satellite navigation based on Kometa-R12 receivers are used for navigation and guidance.<\/p>\n

To use such missiles against ground targets, the Russian military created separate units: a special tactical missile group and a special operational missile group.<\/p>\n

According to the Main Intelligence Directorate, the former uses RM-48U missiles with radio command guidance, while the latter uses satellite-guided missiles. It is the autonomous RM-48U missiles with satellite navigation that Russia uses in most cases.<\/p>\n

Intelligence has established the origin of 117 components<\/strong> of the missile’s electronic units. Of these, 95 are American<\/strong> , four are Taiwanese, three are Swiss, and two each are German, Dutch, Japanese, and South Korean.<\/p>\n

Among the newly discovered components, the power steering system names a laser diode from the French company 3SP TECHNOLOGIES.<\/p>\n

In addition, intelligence released information about 63 Russian enterprises<\/strong> involved in cooperation in the production of RM-48U, their officials and employees, as well as foreign equipment used at these enterprises.<\/p>\n

The Main Intelligence Directorate emphasized that Russia continues to expand its range of weapons for the war against Ukraine, and that its combat experience gained could also be used in the future by its allies \u2013 Iran and North Korea.<\/p>\n

As a reminder, it was previously reported<\/a> that Russia is ramping up production of missiles and drones. According to Ukrainian intelligence, the RM-48U is among the weapons being increased, with its stockpile estimated at approximately 400 units as of early August.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, earlier reports<\/a> indicated Russia’s possible first use of RM-48U missiles against Ukraine. At the time, it was reported that missiles of this type could have been used in one of the massive strikes.<\/p>\n

Follow “Pryamy” on Facebook<\/a> , X<\/a> , Telegram<\/a> and Instagram<\/a> .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense has released detailed information about the Russian RM-48U strike missile, based on the missiles for the S-400 system. The Directorate has dubbed it a new Russian ballistic “Frankenstein” and revealed the missile’s design, specifications, and component base. The Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":1437889,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76874,76875,76896,76871,76872],"class_list":["post-1437922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-war","category-other-news","category-techno","category-news-2","category-news-feed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1437922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1437922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1437922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1437889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1437922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1437922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}