How Russia Revived the Soviet Tochka Solid Fuel Ballistic Missile Arsenal For War in Ukraine

The escalation of war in Ukraine to a period of full scale hostilities in February 2022 quickly saw ballistic and cruise missile strike capabilities gain central importance to the war efforts of both Moscow and Kiev, with Russian Iskander-M missile systems gaining <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/iskander-successes-strike-artillery" target="_blank">particular prominence</a> for the wide <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/russian-iskanderm-takes-out-ukraine-s300" target="_blank">range of roles</a> in which they have been used. From early 2024 the Russian Armed Forces have been able to launch ballistic missile strikes at significantly higher rates, primarily due to both the procurement of significant quantities of <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/nkorean-kn23b-ballistic-strikes-ukraine" target="_blank">KN-23 ballistic systems</a> from North Korea, and successes in <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/russia-expanded-production-iskander-sustain" target="_blank">expanding production</a> of the Iskander-M’s 9K720 missiles domestically. Lacking sufficient Iskander-M missiles in the preceding 22 months of hostilities, however, the Russian Armed Forces were able to compensate by bringing recently retired Soviet OTR-21 Tochka-U ballistic missile systems back into service. The Tochka system was previously deployed by the Soviet Armed Forces as a shorter ranged counterpart to the Scud and Oka missiles, with the retirement of the Scud due to its age, and the Oka due to pressure from the United States, leaving it as Russia’s only tactical ballistic missile class in service until the Iskander-M began to enter service in the 2006.&nbsp;<img src="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/m/articles/2025/03/24/article_67e0cba7932048_87481929.jpeg" title="Tochka Ballistic Missile Launcher">Like the Iskander, the Tochka is a highly mobile system that uses a solid fuel composite, ensuring a short launch time and the ability to quickly redeploy to avoid being targeted. With a range of just 200 kilometres, compared to the Iskander-M’s 500 kilometres and the North Korean-supplied&nbsp;<a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/move-aside-iskander-kn23b-russia-top" target="_blank">KN-23B’s 800 kilometres</a>, the missile’s range and limited manoeuvrability are particularly serious restrictions. Although the last Tochka-U systems were formally phased out of service in 2017 and replaced by the Iskander-M, social media footage showed that the systems were brought back into service in 2022. The systems were reportedly taken by rail into Melitopol on flatbeds in July 2022. The need to conserve a large portion of the Iskander-M arsenal for possible hostilities with NATO made expenditure of the ageing Tochka arsenal preferable, mirroring the expenditure of the country’s ageing <a href="https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/kh22-strikes-impossible-air-defence-desperate" target="_blank">Kh-22 cruise missile arsenal</a> which was similarly slated for retirement.Despite its age, the Tochka-U system is sufficiently sophisticated so as not to impose considerable burdens on a modern army to operate, with its precision strike capabilities having been considered ahead of its time and still sufficient to make them highly valuable on the frontlines.&nbsp;It remains uncertain what portion of the Tochka-U arsenal still remains in service, with significant quantities of the missiles reported by some sources to have been transferred by the Syrian Arab Army in the 2010s to support counterinsurgency efforts against Western and Turkish backed insurgents. Although the Tochka system was world leading when first introduced in the mid-1970s, the destruction of Syria’s arsenals in Israeli air strikes in December 2024, and the expenditure of Russia and Ukraine’s own arsenals, raise the significant possibility that the missile system’s time in service remains limited.&nbsp;