Moscow: Russia used its newest Kinzhal hypersonic missiles for the first time in Ukraine on Friday to destroy a weapons storage site in the country’s west, the defence ministry said.
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 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”, the Russian defence ministry said Saturday. A defence ministry spokesman declined to comment when reached by AFP.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has termed the Kinzhal (Dagger) missile “;an ideal weapon” that flies at 10 times the speed of sound and can overcome air-defence systems. The Kinzhal missile was one of an array of new weapons Putin unveiled in his state-of-the-nation address in 2018. Deliatyn, a village in the foothills of the picturesque Carpathian mountains, is located outside the city of Ivano-Frankivsk. The region of Ivano-Frankivsk shares a 50-kilometre (30-mile) long border with NATO member Romania.
