Ns News Online Desk: In what may be the first use of hypersonic missiles in a theater of war ever, Russia announced that its newest Kinzhal hypersonic missiles were used Friday for the first time to destroy a weapons storage site in the country’s west, the defense ministry said.
“The Kinzhal aviation missile system with hypersonic aeroballistics missiles destroyed a large underground warehouse containing missiles and aviation ammunition” in the village of Deliatyn in the Ivano-Frankivsk region,” the Russian Defense Ministry said Saturday.
State news agency RIA Novosti said it was the first use of the Kinzhal hypersonic weapons during what Moscow calls a “special military operation” in pro-Western Ukraine.
A defense ministry spokesperson declined to comment when reached by the (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-defense 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-kilometer (30-mile) long border with NATO member Romania.
