Russian Missiles

Three naming systems overlap. The military catalogs every weapon by GRAU index (9M723 is the Iskander's missile, 9K720 the whole system). Designers and exporters use names — Iskander, Kalibr, Kinzhal — plus prefixes that encode the mission: R- for air-to-air, Kh- for air-to-surface, S- for air-defense systems, P- for naval anti-ship, RS/RT for strategic. NATO assigns its own reporting designations, where the letters give the mission (SS, SA, AA, AS, AT · SSC for coastal, ABM for interceptors · an inserted N for naval launch) and the nickname's first letter matches the launch environment: S-names for anything launched from the surface — including the SS-N naval and AT anti-tank series (Satan, Stone, Sagger, Spriggan) — G-names for surface-to-air (Grumble, Growler, Galosh), A-names for air-to-air (Alamo, Archer), K-names for air-launched (Kitchen, Killjoy).

One lane per family, one dot per missile entering service. The Soviet decades fill every lane at once — this is the arsenal NATO invented reporting names for — then the post-Soviet slowdown thins the 1990s to a handful of programmes started before the collapse, and the rearmament after 2007 concentrates on the systems in the news since 2022: Iskander, Kalibr, Kinzhal, Zircon, Sarmat.

Two lines carry the land-based deterrent: the heavy silo missiles from the R-36 through NATO's SS-18 Satan to the still-in-test Sarmat, and the road-mobile solid-fuel line from the SS-25 through Topol-M to the Yars that forms today's backbone. The submarine leg matured from the liquid-fueled Makeyev designs to the Bulava, derived from Topol-M. Below the strategic threshold, the Iskander replaced the Scud-era systems — and the Oreshnik used against Ukraine in 2024 grew out of the canceled Rubezh program.

The bomber-launched line runs from the Kh-55 — the Soviet Tomahawk analogue — to the stealthy Kh-101 that arms Tu-95 and Tu-160 sorties over Ukraine. At sea, the 3M14 Kalibr turned frigates and submarines into land-attack platforms from its 2015 Syria debut. The ground-launched 9M729 is the missile whose range dispute ended the INF Treaty, and the nuclear-powered Burevestnik remains the family's most exotic claim.

The Kh prefix covers the tactical air-to-ground catalogue: laser- and TV-guided Kh-25 and Kh-29 for close work, the anti-radar Kh-58 and Kh-31 that hunt air-defense radars, and standoff weapons like the Kh-59. The air-launched Kinzhal — an Iskander adapted to the MiG-31 — sits at the top of the line, marketed as a hypersonic weapon and intercepted over Ukraine nonetheless. Note the range on file: 480 km is the missile's own reach, in line with the Iskander it derives from. The 2,000 km usually quoted adds the MiG-31K's combat radius — which is why Russian sources credit the same missile with 3,000 km when a Tu-22M3 carries it.

The P-15 Styx opened the missile age at sea by sinking the destroyer Eilat in 1967, and the Soviet answer to US carriers was mass: heavy supersonic missiles like the P-700 Granit, fired in salvos from cruisers and submarines. The modern line pairs the ramjet Oniks — exported as the Indian BrahMos — with the Kalibr's sprint variant, and the Zircon claims Mach 9.

The SA-2 that shot down Gary Powers' U-2 in 1960 founded the deepest air-defense catalogue in the world. Its strategic descendants run S-300, S-350, S-400, S-500 — the S-400 being Russia's biggest arms-export story of the century — layered over army systems from the Buk to the gun-missile Pantsir, and three generations of shoulder-fired Strela, Igla and Verba.

The line started with a copy — the R-3 was reverse-engineered from a US Sidewinder recovered intact — and produced two genuine shocks: the R-73, whose helmet-cued agility surprised NATO when Germany inherited East German MiG-29s, and today's R-37M, a 400 km weapon that keeps Ukrainian pilots at arm's length. The R-77 family is the active-radar standard that answers the AMRAAM.

The 9M14 Malyutka — NATO's AT-3 Sagger — stunned Israeli armor in 1973 and seeded a family that never stopped: wire-guided Fagot and Konkurs for the infantry, laser-beam Kornet as the modern standard, gun-launched rounds fired through tank barrels, and the helicopter-borne Shturm and Vikhr lines.