Russia used a hypersonic missile for its massive attack on Ukraine

Russian forces used hypersonic missiles among the 81 rockets launched in Thursday’s offensive against Ukraine, as confirmed by the Russian Ministry of Defense, while Ukrainian military authorities acknowledged that their forces cannot stop this type of arsenal with high efficiency.

Anti-aircraft sirens sounded over the capital for seven hours, while Ukrainian air defenses shot down drones and all types of cruise missiles, although according to preliminary reports a hypersonic missile hit its target.

“Long-range precision weapons, air, sea and land-based, including the Kinzhal hypersonic missile system, hit key elements of Ukraine’s military infrastructure, enterprises of the military-industrial complex, as well as energy facilities that supply them with energy,” said Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov.

“Unfortunately, a Kinzhal-type missile hit an infrastructure object,” said Serhi Popko, head of the military authority of the kyiv region.

Putin’s military has used this type of missile previously in Ukraine. In August, it reported that they had been launched three times, beginning in July. “And all three times he showed brilliant characteristics,” Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu celebrated at the time.

The Kinzhal missiles (“dagger” in Russian) are part of a set of new hypersonic weapons that President Vladimir Putin presented in 2018 in a bellicose speech in which he said they could reach almost any point in the world and evade an anti-missile shield developed by USA.
infobae

The Kinzhal measures eight meters, weighs half a ton and can be launched from both a fighter plane and a bomber. Its speed is five to ten times faster than sound and has a range of more than 2000 km.

According to a report cited by the Russian news agency TASS in July 2018, this type of weapon could reach a range of over 3,000 kilometers if launched from a Tupolev Tu-22M bomber. This Russian dagger is a very difficult projectile to intercept due to its maneuverability. Its hypersonic characteristic allows it to change its trajectory in the air and deviate if necessary.

This Thursday, the head of the Ukrainian Armed Forces stated that Russia fired 81 missiles into Ukrainian territory in the early hours of Thursday, including six Kinzhal missiles.

Valery Zaluzhny reported on Telegram the list of the arsenal used from different bases: 28 Kh-101/Kh-555 cruise missiles from the air; 20 Kalibr cruise missiles from the sea; six X-22 aerial cruise missiles; six Kh-47 Kinzhal aerial cruise missiles; eight guided aerial missiles: 2 – Kh-31P; 6 – X-59; and 13 S-300 guided anti-aircraft missiles.

The use of hypersonic missiles is being analyzed from two perspectives: it could be a new act of intimidation by the Kremlin or a sign of the depletion of the more “standard” rocket arsenal in the Russian forces.

Hello attacks

Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported explosions in the southwest of the capital. Via the messaging app Telegram, the mayor said that 40% of kyiv’s consumers had been left without electricity.

The Black Sea port of Odessa and the country’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, were also hit by missiles, in a wide arc of targets stretching from Yitomir, Vynnytsia and Rivne in the west to Dnieper and Poltava in the centre of the country, according to Ukrainian authorities.

On Thursday morning, the Ukrainian military declared that Russian forces were attacking the mining town of Bakhmut and other eastern towns, including Kupyansk, Liman, Avdiivka and Shakhtarsk.

“Over the last day, our soldiers repelled more than 110 attacks,” the Ukrainian military stated.

Missiles knocked out power to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in a series of attacks across Ukraine as Ukrainian defenders repelled fierce assaults on the besieged city of Bakhmut. The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, captured by the Russian military a year ago, was forced to rely on backup generators after Russian missiles damaged Ukrainian infrastructure supplying the plant with electricity, Ukraine’s state-owned power company Energoatom said in a statement.

In Odessa, the region’s governor, Maksym Marchenko, said on Telegram that a massive missile attack hit an energy facility in the port city, knocking out power. Residential areas were also hit.

The governor of the Kharkiv region, Oleh Synehubov, said the city and the region were hit by 15 attacks, the targets of which included infrastructure. Other attacks were reported in the central city of Dnieper and in regions across the country.

Russia, which has failed to achieve a significant battlefield victory for months, set its sights on Bakhmut last August. Fighting in the city has been some of the bloodiest since the start of its invasion of Ukraine in February last year, but so far the Russian military only claims to have taken the eastern half of the city.

(With information from Reuters)

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