Did The Russians Sabotage Ukraine’s Neptune Missiles?

The Neptune anti-ship missile was one of Ukraine’s secret weapons. Developed in fits and starts and completed just weeks before Russia widened its war on Ukraine, the 1,900-pound cruise missile was the Ukrainian navy’s greatest hope for holding back the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

But the first missiles the navy’s sole Neptune battery fired at Russian ships, in March, missed their targets. And some Ukrainian sailors blame Russian agents.

The possibility that saboteurs, in or near the Kyiv-based Luch Design Burea, deliberately miswired the missiles is just one of several fascinating—and previously unreported—details in Ukrainska Pravda reporter Roman Romaniuk’s definitive history of the Neptune.

The Ukrainian navy for years was soft on Neptune, despite the fleet lacking other weapons that might stand any chance of blunting Russia’s overwhelming naval advantage on the Black Sea.

The Russian Black Sea Fleet, led by the missile cruiser Moskva, could deploy three dozen ships and submarines plus scores of aircraft and several land-based missile batteries. The Ukrainian navy by contrast had just one gun-armed frigate and a few helicopters.

War was looming when, in late 2020, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky personally ordered his administration to find money to complete Neptune’s test program and rush production of the first battery: a single truck-mounted quad-launcher plus supporting Mineral-U mobile radars and resupply vehicles.

But a year later in December 2021, “there still no missiles,” Romaniuk wrote. The Russian army was massing along Ukraine’s borders and would attack on Feb. 24. Time was running out.

The first batch of missiles finally was ready on Feb. 20. “Literally a few days before the full-scale invasion, they were taken out of the plant in Kyiv,” Romaniuk wrote. The Russians later struck the plant three times with their own long-range missiles.

The Neptune battery deployed to Mykolaiv, a port on the Southern Bug River just 40 miles from the Black Sea. Mykolaiv and nearby Odesa are vital to Ukraine’s economy. They also are the Russian fleet’s top targets.

Soon after arriving around Mykolaiv, the Neptune battery spotted its first potential targets. A trio of Russian amphibious ships in March left their home port in Russian-occupied Crimea and sailed toward Mykolaiv. The Neptune crew launched three missiles—presumably one at each Russian vessel.

None hit. The missiles disappeared from the battery’s scopes. The crew assumed the Russians had shot them down.

There were good reasons to make that assumption. The missiles’ flight paths took them over Odesa. In order to reduce the risk the city’s residents, the Neptune operators programmed the missiles to cruise at 400 feet instead of the optimal 20 feet. That made them easier for Russian forces to detect and engage.

But it also was possible the Neptunes malfunctioned and flew off course. “For the operators, the biggest disappointment is when their missiles simply disappear somewhere and do not hit anywhere,” Romaniuk explained.

To rule out a technical failure, the Neptune crew and technicians from Luch tore the battery apart. “They discovered that one part of all the rockets was out of order, because of which the rockets did not detonate as they should have.”

The missiles were faulty. The question was … why. Did the workers at Luch make a mistake? Or did the Russians have agents inside the production process?

Luch insisted there was no sabotage. But two military sources told Romaniuk they couldn’t rule it out. “It turned out that all the missiles had the same malfunction, and it was clearly specially made,” one military source said. “It was the only time in the entire war when I could say that it was like treason.”

Factory workers deliberately screwing up work on a few anti-ship missiles isn’t beyond believability. Recall that a Ukrainian agent recently sneaked 500 miles into Russia to blow up a Russian air force attack helicopter on the ground at a military airfield. The Ukrainians also dramatically rigged a truck bomb to badly damage the Kerch Bridge connecting Crimea to Russia.

Whether the Neptunes’ flaws were accidents or the result of sabotage, the Ukrainians quickly repaired the remaining missiles. And a few weeks later, on April 13, they fired two of them at the Russian cruiser Moskva, sinking her and changing the tide of the Black Sea naval war.