Russia on Friday used their newest Kinzhal hypersonic missiles storage facility in the west of Ukraine. The Khinzhal missile was first unveiled by Putin in 2018 in his address to the nation. In a statement, the Russian defense ministry said “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,”.
About the Kinzhal Missile:-
- Kinzhal is a Russian Nuclear capable hypersonic aero ballistic air to ground missile.
- Russians claim that it has a range of about 2000km. With a speed of about Mach 10(3420 m/s).
- The missile can be launched from MIG-31K, Su-57, and Tu-22M.
- Putin said that the Kinzhal(dagger) missile is “an ideal weapon” that flies at 10 times the speed of sound and can overcome air-defence systems.
The attack was carried out in a village Deliatyn located in the foothills of the picturesque Carpathian mountains outside the city of Ivano-Frankivsk which also shares a border of 50 km with Romania a member of NATO(North Atlantic Treaty Organization).
Putin in 2019 also threatened the United States of deploying hypersonic missiles on Submarine and Ships that could lurk outside US territorial waters if Washington moved to deploy intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe.
The U.S also has been in constant pursuit of developing Hypersonic Missiles that can fly at a speed of Mach 5 according to a new congress report. A former Commander of US Strategic Command General John Hyten said “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”.