Confronting Russia’s High-Velocity Arsenal: European Challenges and Solutions

Russia’s long-range strike arsenal includes different types of missile systems, ranging from long-range one-way attack drones like the Geran series to cruise missiles like the Kh-101 and Kalibr, to ballistic missiles like the Kh-47 Kinzhal or the 9M723 used on the Iskander system. While each missile type presents its own challenges, this memo focuses specifically on Russia’s high-velocity missile arsenal, that is, its ballistic and hypersonic missiles. In many ways, these systems have proved most difficult for Ukraine to deal with, and European states could be expected to face similar challenges.

Ballistic missiles are rocket-boosted systems whose flight, after the boost phase, is determined primarily by ballistic physics: they arc toward their targets along largely predictable trajectories, even if greater maneuverability has become an increasingly important feature of modern ballistic missiles. Several types of ballistic missiles reach hypersonic velocity (at or above Mach 5) during descent, especially those that leave and subsequently re-enter the atmosphere. The German V-2, the world’s first operational ballistic missile, reached hypersonic velocity in 1944, as have a large number of ballistic missiles developed since. A hypersonic missile is therefore not defined by hypersonic speed alone, but by its ability to combine sustained hypersonic speed with significant maneuverability during the midcourse and terminal phase of flight. In this regard, maneuverability governs the missile’s trajectory rather than merely modulating it. Three missile system types meet this standard: hypersonic boost-glide vehicles (HGVs), hypersonic cruise missiles, and some types of longer-range aeroballistic missiles. Unlike ballistic missiles on a traditional parabolic trajectory driven by gravity, aeroballistic missiles follow a depressed flight path that keeps them within the atmosphere for most or all of their flight. Sustained atmospheric flight provides aerodynamic control authority during the midcourse and terminal stages, enabling better course correction ability throughout flight and evasive maneuvers in the endgame.

This memo considers what European states’ response to the high-velocity missile threat can and should look like, particularly as it emerges from Russia. China fields a comparable and in parts more advanced high-velocity missile arsenal. However, because the Russian threat remains the most immediate for European defense planning, this memo focuses on missile systems on the European continent. The argument centers on two points. First, missile defense remains indispensable, and efforts to deploy a sovereign and cost-efficient ballistic and hypersonic missile defense capability should remain a top European priority. Second, interceptor scarcity, cost asymmetries, and difficulties with establishing comprehensive territorial coverage mean that a posture built on defense alone will fail against an adversary able to generate mass in the high-velocity missile domain. Europe therefore requires a complementary conventional counterstrike capability that credibly threatens calibrated retaliation.