Beating the Plan: Russia's Missile Factories Are Running at 120 Percent, and the Pause Isn't Coming

Start with the number that should end any talk of a lull: 351. That is how many missiles Russia put into Ukrainian airspace in July, the highest monthly total of the year, including 198 ballistic and hypersonic weapons, itself a 2026 record. And according to Ukraine's Defence Intelligence, that tempo is not a surge burning through old stock. It is what steady-state overproduction looks like.

The figures come from Major General Vadym Skibitskyi, deputy chief of Ukraine's Defence Intelligence, in an interview with RBC-Ukraine published August 10 and carried by Militarnyi, Ukrinform, Ukrainska Pravda and Gwara Media. His core assessment is short and grim: for the main types of missile weapons, Russian industry is currently meeting its monthly production targets at 110 to 120 percent. The plan is not slipping. The plan is being beaten.

What the Production Ledger Shows

The July line items, all reported estimates from DIU, read like a factory floor bragging sheet. Kh-101 cruise missile output ran at 140 percent of plan, with Ukrinform citing 87 airframes built against a monthly target of 72. The Kh-35 anti-ship missile hit 200 percent of plan. Kalibr production came in at 111 percent, roughly 29 missiles against a target of 26. Most striking: by August 3, Russia had already fulfilled its entire annual procurement plan for Zircon hypersonic and Oniks supersonic missiles, on reported monthly targets of five and eight units respectively.

Iskander is the workhorse to watch. Skibitskyi puts 9M723 ballistic missile production at roughly 60 units per month with a stockpile of about 130. That stockpile figure sounds thin until you hear the doctrine behind it. In his words, the missiles are not really being added to stockpiles: almost everything coming off the production line is being used for combat operations. Russia is not saving for a rainy day. It is spending as it earns, and July's 153 cruise missile launches plus 198 ballistic and hypersonic launches are the receipts.

What Got Cut to Feed the Line

Overfulfillment did not come free. DIU says Moscow suspended production of the Kinzhal aeroballistic missile and the Kh-32 in April, redirecting those resources to systems that hit more reliably. Even quality control feeds the line: defective Kh-101s are reportedly sent back into production for rework rather than written off. The strike pattern has adapted too. Expect three to four large combined strikes per month, with fewer missiles per individual target but no operational pause. Priority targets, per DIU: defense industry facilities, logistics hubs, energy, and ports.

The inputs are the uncomfortable part. Skibitskyi repeats what Ukrainian intelligence has documented for years: critical components continue to reach Russian production lines from Europe, the United States, China, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. North Korea has supplied roughly 140 missiles of its own, a stockpile we profiled last week when Pyongyang's missile troops turned up inside Russia. Iran's role, by contrast, has reportedly diminished since 2022 and 2023.

The Drone Side of the Ledger

The missile plan sits on top of a drone plan. DIU reports a target of 11,000 strike UAVs for August alone across the Geran, Garpiya and Gerbera series. The composition matters as much as the count: turbojet-powered Geran-4 and Geran-5 variants made up about half of recent attack packages. Faster, higher, harder to catch with gun trucks and interceptor drones. Readers of our piece on the Shahed kill chain will recognize the trajectory: the archer keeps improving the arrows.

Why It Matters

Air defense is a supply problem on both ends, and right now both curves favor Moscow. We wrote last week about the night Kyiv's air defense math broke, when only one ballistic missile out of twenty-eight was intercepted. This report explains the other half of that equation: President Zelensky says deliveries of ballistic interceptors from Western partners have fallen roughly threefold compared to 2025, while the arsenal on the other side grows above plan. Ukraine's answer, the long-range sanctions campaign against refineries and defense plants that this channel tracks nightly, is an attempt to attack the production ledger itself. That is the actual contest of 2026: Ukrainian deep strike against Russian industrial throughput.

What to Watch

Watch whether Zircon and Oniks lines keep running now that the annual plan is filled, which would signal stockpiling for naval and coastal strike roles. Watch the turbojet share of Geran attacks: if it pushes past half, interceptor drone economics get ugly fast. Watch for Ukrainian strikes on missile component and propellant plants, the logical next rung after refineries. And watch the monthly ballistic launch count: July's 198 is now the benchmark, and DIU's warning is that it will not be the ceiling.

The channel will keep pulling these numbers apart as they land. For the raw feed, find us at t.me/TheLeaflet. For the analysis, you are already in the right place: The Daily Sitrep.

Sources

RBC-Ukraine (interview with Maj. Gen. Vadym Skibitskyi, August 10, 2026); Militarnyi; Ukrinform; Ukrainska Pravda; Gwara Media. Production and stockpile figures are Ukrainian Defence Intelligence reported estimates and could not be independently verified.