Ukrainian and Western officials have been talking for months about Russia’s depletion of missile stockpiles, but Russian troops continue to launch massive strikes on Ukraine, writes the New York Times.
Mark. F. Cancian, a former Marine and White House weapons strategist, senior adviser with the CSIS International Security Program, notes that few Western politicians have real data about the Russian missile arsenal.
«Few, if any, Western officials have a clear account of the status of Russia’s arsenal or know precisely how many missiles remain in its stockpile,» says Cancian.
According to him, the Western military believes that Moscow has long ago created a stockpile of missiles and other weapons for a possible war with NATO.
«They apparently have a withhold for a notional NATO attack, which we would regard as absurd, but they regard it as a real possibility. So they’re holding back some part of their inventory for that,» Cancian said.
It is not known whether Russia used some of these reserves for strikes on November 15 and later, concludes the New York Times.