Russia increased its stock of long-range missiles faster than expected, report says. It could spell a hard winter for Ukraine.

• Russia is renewing its missile stocks faster than expected.
• It boosted its missile stocks by 285 since August, a think tank said.

Russia increased its stock of long-range missiles despite Western sanctions designed to bite into its ability to produce them, a think tank said.

The Institute for The Study of War (ISW), a US-based think tank, cited November 6 figures from Ukrainian Main Military Intelligence Directorate spokesman Vadym Skibitskyi, which stated that Russia had 870 high-precision missiles in reserve.

"Skibitskyi previously stated on August 28 that Russian forces had a total of 585 long-range missiles in reserve, indicating that Russian forces have increased their missile reserves by 285 missiles since August," said the ISW.

In August Skibitskyi claimed that Russia was struggling to replenish its supplies of some types of missile due to foreign components shortages caused by Western sanctions.

But the boost in Russian long-range missile stocks — with 115 being produced in October alone — indicates "that Russia has increased its domestic production of missiles faster than had been forecasted," said the ISW.

The Russian military appears to be stockpiling missiles in preparation for a new wave of attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure in winter, British intelligence said in October.

In the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Western countries have imposed sweeping sanctions on Russia aimed, in part, at cutting off supplies of Western-produced components of sophisticated weapons such as long-range missiles.

Insider in August found that Russia had managed to circumvent the sanctions by re-routing the purchase of parts through shell companies and countries close to Russia.

An expert on Russian sanctions told Insider in September that the West needed to step up efforts to cut off the flows of Kremlin money used to fund the illicit weapons part trade.

Russia has used long-range missiles to hit both civilian and military targets as part of a strategy analysts say is aimed at terrorizing Ukraine and breaking its will to fight.

Ukraine's military in August said that Russian missiles used in attacks on Ukraine contained 30-50 foreign-made components whose supply to Russia was supposed to have been cut off by the sanctions regime, The Kyiv Post reported.