RUSSIA SAYS HAS AGAIN FIRED HYPERSONIC MISSILES IN UKRAINE

Sun 20 March 2022:

Russia said it had again fired its newest hypersonic missiles in Ukraine, destroying a fuel storage site in the country’s south.

“Kinzhal aviation missile systems with hypersonic ballistic missiles destroyed a large storage site for fuels and lubricants of the Ukrainian armed forces near the settlement of Kostyantynivka in the Mykolaiv region,” the Russian defence ministry said.

The strike marked the second day in a row that Russia used the Kinzhal, a weapon capable of striking targets 2,000km (1,250 miles) away at a speed 10 times the speed of sound.

Russia has never before admitted using the high-precision weapon in combat, and state news agency RIA Novosti said it was the first use of the Kinzhal hypersonic weapons during the conflict in pro-Western Ukraine.

The Russian defence ministry said on Saturday, “The Kinzhal aviation missile system with hypersonic aeroballistic missiles destroyed a large underground warehouse containing missiles and aviation ammunition in the village of Deliatyn in the Ivano-Frankivsk region”.

‘Kamikaze drones’

Russia prides itself on its advanced weaponry, and President Vladimir Putin said in December that Russia was the global leader in hypersonic missiles, whose speed, manoeuvrability and altitude make them difficult to track and intercept.

The Kinzhal missiles are part of an array of weapons unveiled in 2018.

Russia first used the hypersonic missile during its military campaign in Syria in 2016.

Putin has called the Kinzhal (Dagger) missile “an ideal weapon” that flies at 10 times the speed of sound and can overcome air-defence systems.

“This is a missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads and is believed to be undetectable by western air defence systems,” said Al Jazeera’s Dorsa Jabbari, speaking from Moscow. “Therefore it is being called an unstoppable ballistic missile.”

Putin announced an array of new hypersonic weapons in 2018 in one of his most bellicose speeches in years, saying they could hit almost any point in the world and evade a United States-built missile shield.

The following year, he threatened to deploy hypersonic missiles on ships and submarines that could lurk outside US territorial waters if Washington moved to deploy intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe.

The United States has actively pursued the development of hypersonic weapons – manoeuvering weapons that fly at speeds of at least Mach 5 – as a part of its conventional prompt global strike programme since the early 2000s, according to a new congressional report.

These weapons could enable “responsive, long-range, strike options against distant, defended, and/or time-critical threats [such as road-mobile missiles] when other forces are unavailable, denied access, or not preferred”, said former Commander of US Strategic Command General John Hyten.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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