Russia claims to have fired its newest Kinzhal hypersonic missiles in Ukraine for the first time to attack a weapons storage location in the country’s west.
According to reports, this is the first time Russia has used the hypersonic Kinzhal system since deploying troops into Ukraine on February 24.
The Russian Defense Ministry reportedly said that it killed more than 100 Ukrainian special forces and “foreign mercenaries” when it used sea-based missiles to target a training site in the northern Ukrainian town of Ovruch.
“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 Defense Ministry said.
The station served as the key gasoline supply for Ukrainian armoured vehicles in the country’s south, according to the ministry.
Furthermore, the ministry reported that Kinzhal (Dagger) hypersonic missiles were launched from airspace over Russian-controlled Crimea and Kalibr cruise missiles launched from the Caspian Sea.
On Saturday, Russia announced that it had struck an underground missile and ammunition storage complex in western Ukraine near the NATO member Romania with Kinzhal hypersonic missiles.
On Saturday, the Ukrainian armed forces confirmed that the depot had been hit, but they had “no information of the type of missile.”
According to Russian experts, the firing of Kinzhal hypersonic missiles in Deliatyn, a village in the Carpathian foothills, on Friday marked the world’s first combat use of such weapons.
According to the Russian Defence Ministry, long-range precision missiles were reportedly used against other sites in Ukraine on Saturday evening and early Sunday. In addition, the Russian military launched Kalibr missiles from the Black Sea to assault a plant that repairs armoured vehicles in the northern city of Nizhyn.