Sabotage of Ukrainian Neptune missiles at beginning of full-scale war with Russia possible

After the first combat use of Ukrainian Neptune missiles at the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Russia in February 2022, an inspection revealed the failure of one and the same part in the missiles, Defence iIntelligence suggests sabotage.

Source: Ukrainska Pravda article Sinking ‘Moskva’: unknown details. How the Ukrainian Neptune destroyed the flagship of the Russian fleet

Details: After February's not-quite-successful launches, a group of experts from Kyiv's Luch ("Ray") Design Bureau, which is the main developer of the missile, came to check them in March. They discovered a very suspicious pattern: on all the missiles, one part was damaged, due to which the missiles did not detonate as they should have.

Experts fixed the issue. Sources of Ukrainska Pravda in Luch Design Bureau are not inclined on the version about sabotage.

"We are constantly called to repair or check something. This is the specifics of the product. The missile is full of very sensitive electronics, there are many risks for it even at the stage of simple transportation. I don't think that there was any sabotage," assures the source of Ukrainska Pravda at the Bureau.

At the same time, two other independent sources, in particular in the army leadership, suggest that the missiles could have been damaged on purpose.

Quote from Ukrainska Pravda source in Defence Intelligence: "Such a story really happened. It turned out that all the missiles had the same malfunction, and it was clearly done on purpose. It was the only time in the entire full-scale war when I could say that it looked like treason. But everything was fixed, and Moskva [a guided missile cruiser of the Russian Navy] was gone."

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