Iskander: An Improved Russian Missile Tests Ukraine’s Air Defence

20 Nov 2025 11:56 AM

Russia has reportedly modified its Iskander 9M723 ballistic missiles making them harder to intercept. The causes are unclear, but the impact on Ukraine is not.

Recently, there have been a series of reports that Ukraine’s ability to intercept the Russian 9M723 Iskander-M ballistic missile with Patriot interceptors is deteriorating. Given the sensitivities around the subject, precise reasons have not been provided although several reports have alluded to software upgrades which have allowed the Iskander to manoeuvre more effectively in its terminal phase, thus evading Patriot interceptors. This article seeks to evaluate the plausibility of both this and other competing hypotheses regarding the seeming increase in the performance of the 9M723. It does not provide conclusive answers but rather an assessment of the relative weight which researchers might attach to competing explanations.

The Importance of Caution in Assessing Intercept Rates

It is worth beginning by noting that one should be cautious in interpreting data regarding intercept rates. The use of percentages predisposes readers to assume that there is, all other things being equal, a given likelihood of any missile being intercepted by a particular defensive system. In reality the data is marked by discontinuities and largely driven by specific high impact events.

Data of Russian missile strikes since September 2022 compiled by Petro Ivaniuk, a Ukrainian researcher and confirmed by CSIS, the Washington-based think-tank, shows that Ukraine’s interception rates of 9M723 have never been particularly high. The dataset up to 24 October 2025, shows that 939 Iskanders and Kinzhals have been fired at Ukraine, and just 227 have been intercepted. This represents a somewhat positive picture – it suggests that 24% of Russia’s ballistic and aero-ballistic missiles are intercepted.

However, this includes 18 events where all or most of the missiles were intercepted, out of a total of 345 attacks that included them. This is a very high success rate for those 18 attacks, and represents something of an anomaly. Interpreting the data in another way, it indicates that in just 4% of attacks, Ukraine has succeeded in intercepting most of the Iskander and Kinzhal missiles fired at it. Of those 345 attacks, in 273 instances Ukraine’s air defences did not intercept any Iskander or Kinzhal missiles. As a result, 593 missiles made it through the country’s air defences, although 22 of those missiles reportedly failed to reach their targets.

It is of note that the absence of an intercept does not imply a failure of Patriot, per se; the missile may have been employed against targets which did not receive the protection of one of Ukraine’s limited arsenal of six Patriot batteries. If one narrows the search down to attacks on locations where a Patriot launcher was known to be present (for example Kyiv and Odessa) there does appear to be a considerable deterioration of air defence effectiveness. While data still shows discontinuities, with virtually every Iskander intercepted in some months while none are in others, a downward trend is nonetheless visible and by 2025 there are no months with very high intercept rates (30% being the maximum achieved around Odessa).

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