Ukraine’s ‘Long Neptune’ missile reshapes strike reach with new gaps in Russian air defenses
{loadposition bannertop}
{loadposition sidebarpub}
Ukraine has unveiled the Neptune-D, a new cruise missile with a 1,000-kilometer range and a larger warhead. The upgrade marks a major leap in Kyiv’s ability to strike deep into Russian territory and signals Ukraine’s expanding domestic weapons design capability.
The state-owned portal “Weapons” has revealed the parameters of a cruise missile that has long been rumored to be called “Long Neptune.” Unveiled as the Neptune-D with the RK-360L missile, the system extends Ukraine’s indigenous Neptune family from coastal defense into deep land attack. Officials highlighted a reach of roughly 1,000 kilometers and a larger, approximately 260-kilogram high-explosive warhead, signaling a decisive move to hold fixed targets far beyond the front at risk. The disclosure frames Neptune-D as both an answer to Russia’s layered air defenses and a statement of Ukraine’s ability to design and field precision standoff weapons under wartime pressure.Follow Army Recognition on Google News at this link
Ukraine’s new Neptune-D “Long Neptune” cruise missile, designated RK-360L, features a 1,000 km strike range, a 260 kg high-explosive warhead, and dual land-attack and anti-ship capability, giving Kyiv a domestically produced long-range precision weapon for deep strikes against critical targets (Picture source: Ukrainian President Zelensky).
Neptune-D differs markedly from the original R-360 anti-ship round. Engineers stretched the airframe to around six meters without the detachable booster and widened the body to about 500 millimeters, trading extra diameter and length for fuel volume while still accommodating the heavier warhead. Propulsion remains a compact turbojet for sustained subsonic cruise, paired with a solid-fuel booster for cold-weather and short-runway launch dynamics from road-mobile carriers. The canisterized missile rides in sealed launch tubes on heavy trucks, with command-and-control and reload vehicles dispersed to complicate detection and preemption. The larger internal volume is a quiet breakthrough, giving planners the margin to balance range, payload, and survivability without exotic materials or scarce imported components.
Guidance and navigation reflect a dual-role architecture. For land attack, Neptune D flies pre-programmed routes at very low altitude, using inertial navigation blended with satellite updates to contour terrain, skirt radar line-of-sight, and time terminal approach. The seeker and avionics have been adapted so that land-attack modes for fixed coordinates coexist with maritime strike against moving ships, preserving the family’s original anti-ship pedigree. That implies robust mid-course navigation with anti-jam features and terminal sensors capable of engaging contrasting target sets, from radar-significant ship hulls at sea to visually or radar-differentiated structures ashore. While performance figures such as circular error probable remain undisclosed, the heavier warhead and long time-of-flight planning suggest a system optimized for functional kills on infrastructure rather than pinpoint penetrations alone.
The value proposition is range, flexibility, and cost-imposition. A 1,000-kilometer envelope brings rail junctions, transformer farms, air-defense command nodes, and defense-industrial plants deep inside Russia within reach of launchers positioned far from the line of contact. Salvos can be routed along staggered ingress paths to exploit seams between radar coverage zones and to compress engagement timelines for systems like S-300 and S-400. The enlarged warhead raises the probability of disabling generators, turbine halls, machine tools, and fixed C2 nodes, reducing the missile-per-target ratio compared with lighter standoff munitions. Because coastal batteries can pivot to sea denial around Crimea and the northeastern Black Sea, commanders can swing the same launcher groups between maritime interdiction and deep land raids as the tactical picture shifts.
By fielding a domestically produced, long-range cruise missile, Ukraine complicates Moscow’s sanctuary assumptions and forces a redistribution of scarce long-range air defenses away from the front toward inland industry and energy infrastructure. For NATO capitals and Washington, Neptune-D underscores both Ukraine’s rising self-sufficiency and the need to harmonize targeting, deconfliction, and battle-damage assessment workflows with an ally operating Western and indigenous standoff weapons in parallel. The result is a widening deep-strike contest in which Ukraine’s homegrown capability erodes Russia’s interior lines, tightens pressure on its war-sustaining capacity, and strengthens Kyiv’s leverage in the ongoing debate over long-range munitions, production scaling, and escalation management.
{loadposition bannertop}
{loadposition sidebarpub}
Ukraine has unveiled the Neptune-D, a new cruise missile with a 1,000-kilometer range and a larger warhead. The upgrade marks a major leap in Kyiv’s ability to strike deep into Russian territory and signals Ukraine’s expanding domestic weapons design capability.
The state-owned portal “Weapons” has revealed the parameters of a cruise missile that has long been rumored to be called “Long Neptune.” Unveiled as the Neptune-D with the RK-360L missile, the system extends Ukraine’s indigenous Neptune family from coastal defense into deep land attack. Officials highlighted a reach of roughly 1,000 kilometers and a larger, approximately 260-kilogram high-explosive warhead, signaling a decisive move to hold fixed targets far beyond the front at risk. The disclosure frames Neptune-D as both an answer to Russia’s layered air defenses and a statement of Ukraine’s ability to design and field precision standoff weapons under wartime pressure.
Follow Army Recognition on Google News at this link
Ukraine’s new Neptune-D “Long Neptune” cruise missile, designated RK-360L, features a 1,000 km strike range, a 260 kg high-explosive warhead, and dual land-attack and anti-ship capability, giving Kyiv a domestically produced long-range precision weapon for deep strikes against critical targets (Picture source: Ukrainian President Zelensky).
Neptune-D differs markedly from the original R-360 anti-ship round. Engineers stretched the airframe to around six meters without the detachable booster and widened the body to about 500 millimeters, trading extra diameter and length for fuel volume while still accommodating the heavier warhead. Propulsion remains a compact turbojet for sustained subsonic cruise, paired with a solid-fuel booster for cold-weather and short-runway launch dynamics from road-mobile carriers. The canisterized missile rides in sealed launch tubes on heavy trucks, with command-and-control and reload vehicles dispersed to complicate detection and preemption. The larger internal volume is a quiet breakthrough, giving planners the margin to balance range, payload, and survivability without exotic materials or scarce imported components.
Guidance and navigation reflect a dual-role architecture. For land attack, Neptune D flies pre-programmed routes at very low altitude, using inertial navigation blended with satellite updates to contour terrain, skirt radar line-of-sight, and time terminal approach. The seeker and avionics have been adapted so that land-attack modes for fixed coordinates coexist with maritime strike against moving ships, preserving the family’s original anti-ship pedigree. That implies robust mid-course navigation with anti-jam features and terminal sensors capable of engaging contrasting target sets, from radar-significant ship hulls at sea to visually or radar-differentiated structures ashore. While performance figures such as circular error probable remain undisclosed, the heavier warhead and long time-of-flight planning suggest a system optimized for functional kills on infrastructure rather than pinpoint penetrations alone.
The value proposition is range, flexibility, and cost-imposition. A 1,000-kilometer envelope brings rail junctions, transformer farms, air-defense command nodes, and defense-industrial plants deep inside Russia within reach of launchers positioned far from the line of contact. Salvos can be routed along staggered ingress paths to exploit seams between radar coverage zones and to compress engagement timelines for systems like S-300 and S-400. The enlarged warhead raises the probability of disabling generators, turbine halls, machine tools, and fixed C2 nodes, reducing the missile-per-target ratio compared with lighter standoff munitions. Because coastal batteries can pivot to sea denial around Crimea and the northeastern Black Sea, commanders can swing the same launcher groups between maritime interdiction and deep land raids as the tactical picture shifts.
By fielding a domestically produced, long-range cruise missile, Ukraine complicates Moscow’s sanctuary assumptions and forces a redistribution of scarce long-range air defenses away from the front toward inland industry and energy infrastructure. For NATO capitals and Washington, Neptune-D underscores both Ukraine’s rising self-sufficiency and the need to harmonize targeting, deconfliction, and battle-damage assessment workflows with an ally operating Western and indigenous standoff weapons in parallel. The result is a widening deep-strike contest in which Ukraine’s homegrown capability erodes Russia’s interior lines, tightens pressure on its war-sustaining capacity, and strengthens Kyiv’s leverage in the ongoing debate over long-range munitions, production scaling, and escalation management.
