David Axe 02 January 2025 3:20pm GMT
With just three weeks left before US president-elect Donald Trump takes office, the administration of US president Joe Biden is rushing to supply Ukraine with as many weapons as possible. Biden is obviously worried that the impulsive, pro-authoritarian Trump will do what he has threatened to do – and reduce or end US aid to Ukraine.
The Ukrainian government isn’t taking any chances. It’s hurrying to develop weapons it can build, pay for and use all on its own – with or without the unreliable, unpredictable Americans.
Ukraine’s new Trembita cruise missile might be the biggest symbol of its drive for firepower autonomy. Anticipating the day when it will run out of bespoke American munitions – most notably, 190-mile-range Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) ballistic missiles – Ukraine is getting ready to build Trembitas and other long-range deep-strike munitions. Lots of them.
Just seven feet long and weighing 200 pounds, the ramp-launched Trembita isn’t much to look at. Like a miniature modern version of Nazi Germany’s V-1 buzz bomb – aka the “doodlebug” – the Trembita combines a loud pulse jet engine with a simple structure – tube-shaped fuselage and square wing – and simple guidance. GPS, in this case.
That simplicity lends the Trembita its best feature: its low cost.
The basic Trembita, under development since 2023, costs only $10,000. It ranges just 90 miles with a 40-pound warhead. PARS, the Ukrainian firm that builds the Trembita, is working on a bigger, farther-flying version that should be able to reach Moscow, 400 miles from the Ukrainian border. That version, which should be ready in around a year, would undoubtedly cost more than $10,000 – but would still be potentially the cheapest deep-strike munition in the world. An ATACMS costs more than $1 million.
There’s no reason Ukraine can’t acquire thousands of Trembitas, even without foreign budgetary assistance. The same can’t be said of the pricier homegrown deep-strike munitions Kyiv has been working on: Hrim-2 ballistic missiles and Neptune cruise missiles, to name two.
That scale matters. To match the massive Russian bombardment of Ukrainian cities, bases, powerplants and factories – attacks that have killed or wounded thousands of Ukrainians – Ukraine needs to massively scale up its own bombardment of Russian cities, bases, refineries and factories. The small numbers of ATACMS and Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG cruise missiles Ukraine has received from the United States, the United Kingdom and France aren’t adequate for an intensive deep-strike campaign.
And the “several hundred” ATACMS Biden has given Ukraine, according to The New York Times, might be the only ATACMS Ukraine ever gets, if Trump throttles or eliminates US aid as early as this month.
To be clear, the Trembita is no ATACMS, Storm Shadow or SCALP-EG. It lacks the payload of the American munition, the penetrating power of the British and French munitions and the accuracy of all three. Substituting smaller, less precise Ukrainian munitions for bigger, more precise foreign munitions would compel the Ukrainians to reconsider which targets it strikes – and how.
A barrage of Trembitas might work just fine against, say, a sprawling factory complex. It might not work so well against the underground command bunkers the Ukrainians have been aiming their Storm Shadows at.
Relying more on their own weapons, the Ukrainians might have to resort to striking a different set of targets. But at least they could keep striking.
The Biden administration still has a few billion dollars in spending authority to provide new and surplus weapons to Kyiv – and it’s determined to use it. But the munitions the Americans ship in the next few weeks won’t last forever. The Ukrainians know the day is coming when they’ll be … if not alone, more alone.
They’re getting ready.
Comment from :
Justin Fuller
Most people seem to have forgotten who started this 3-day special operation. The steaming pile of dung known as Putin needs to be put on trial for war crimes.
Warning : two putrid, shitstained kremtroll dirtbags, one after the other :
Bruce McDonald
” Ukraine needs to massively scale up its own bombardment of Russian cities, bases, refineries and factories”
This guy just loves war.
After a million casualties on all sides it is clear Ukraine cannot win. It desparately needs Trump as its only friend who can convince Putin to sign a peace agreement.
Contrary to supuperficial appearances, the Biden regime is not “pro-Ukraine” in any sense. It sees Ukrainians as cannon-fodder to achieve its strategic goal of denuding Russian military strength (“look, we killed 100,000 Russians without the loss of a single American life!”).
It hasn’t worked and threatens WW3 so Trump’s arrival couldn’t be more timely.
Reply by Peter Moore Reply to Bruce McDonald Axe’s articles are sickening. He’s like the used car salesman of lethal weaponry. Judging by the drone attacks on office blocks and high rise residential buildings in Khazan it’s obvious what these budget ‘Doodlebugs’ will be used for: mass attacks aimed at terrorising Russian civilians.
The potential for blowback is obvious but I suppose Zelenskyy and those advising him will hope to weaponise any Russian retaliation in-kind as just more grist to the mainstream media mill to drum up support for more NATO involvement.
The Deep State will fight to the last dead Ukrainian before they let the dust settle and the discussion begin on their disastrous proxy war.
clive solomon
Reply to Peter Moore
The Ukrainians needed lethal weaponry to adequately retaliate against Russian mass bombardment of its civilians and infrastructure, but it was too little and too late for them. Putin is a brutal dictator who has crushed democratic protest inside and outside his own country and wants to rebuild the Soviet Union of old. I only hope that he will be assassinated after this bloodbath of his own making, ends.
David Walker
My prediction is that Trump will try to broker a peace settlement between Ukraine and Russia, but Putin will not seriously negotiate. He can’t. If Putin agrees to anything less than the total surrender of Ukraine, he will be a dead man in 24 hours. With no agreement Trump will likely reduce United States support for Ukraine, but not end it completely, and expect the other NATO countries to make up the difference. Assuming that happens, Putin is finished.
Tom Foolery
IT is rather unfair Russia has deep strike capability in Ukraine, and Ukraine can’t fire back. If missiles were landing in Russia on the same level, it would surely persuade Russia to go back home.
Karl Eades
How can the US leave Ukraine high and dry? Supply them with everything so they can win. Russia is getting weaker and weaker every day. Trump won’t pull out of Ukraine the way Biden pulled out of afganistan surely. That would be embarrassing.
IAN BIO
Ukraine may have no choice but to target Moscow with indiscriminate barrages. Bringing the reality of war home to the citizens of Moscow may be the only real way to bring Putin down.
A reminder from his Times interview posted yesterday :
“Doubling military support to Ukraine is the key to defeating Russia, says former prime minister of Russia Mikhail Kasyanov.”
Kasyanov knows his stuff. He would be a key part of the leadership, should, as if by some miracle, the cauldron of devilry get democracy.
Democracies never go to war against democracies. To get peace in the world, all dictatorships must die.
Unfortunately, this war has shown that Ukraine is best off by relying on itself. Everyone else is far too wobbly and concerned for mafia feelings to bring about a swift and decisive victory for Ukraine and the free world.