Russia may launch 200–300 missiles, drones at Ukrainian nuclear plants - Defense Express

He shared his opinions on Espreso TV.

“Regarding Russia's capabilities and stockpiles of weapons: if the Russians do attack Ukrainian NPPs, it will be a highly concentrated attack. Obviously, it will likely not be a strike on the power units themselves, but rather on the infrastructure to disable the NPP. However, it would still constitute a strike on a nuclear facility. For such an attack, the Russians could use more than 100 aircraft of various types. Drones will be employed to overload our air defense system, along with cruise and high-speed missiles of the Kinzhal type. It is important to understand one thing here: any air and missile defense can be breached, no matter how dense it is,” Katkov explained.

The expert emphasized that Ukraine's air defense and missile defense systems may not be able to cope with a Russian attack on the nuclear power plant.

“There is always the question of the number of loaded missiles in air defense systems and the quantity of air defense systems available. Even if we allocate one Patriot system for each of our NPPs, those systems also require cover. Despite all this, due to the number of weapons that the enemy could deploy, air defense and missile defense systems may not be able to shoot down all of these air targets. Therefore, there is a high probability that the Russian forces could use 200-300 missiles and UAVs to attack Ukrainian NPPs,” he added.

• Russian military trains FPV drone operators on the territory of the temporarily occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP).