The Russian military fired a hypersonic ballistic missile and destroyed a large underground weapons depot in western Ukraine, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said.
If confirmed, it would be Russia’s first use in this war of the Kinjal, or Dagger, ballistic missile launched from the air, likely by a MiG-31 warplane.
President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly highlighted Russia’s investment in hypersonic missiles, which can travel at more than five times the speed of sound, or Mach 5.
The statistics are impressive: according to Russian authorities, the Kinjal can hit a target up to 2,000 km away and can fly faster than 6,000 km/h.
But does that make them more dangerous than other missiles or even artillery that can cause the same death and destruction?
“I don’t see it as that significant,” says James Acton, a nuclear policy expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “I don’t know how much advantage Russia is getting from using hypersonic missiles.”
Putin boasted in December that Russia was leading the world in hypersonic missiles, which are difficult to track because they can change direction in midair.
Russia posted a video of what it said was its missile attack on the weapons depot in Deliatyn, a village in southwest Ukraine, just 100 km from the Romanian border.
“It is a sign of exhibitionism. Even if it is used, we must consider it as an isolated event, because Russia does not have a large number of these missiles,” says Dominika Kunertova of the Center for Security Studies in Zurich, Switzerland.
The Russian leader introduced the Kinjal four years ago as one of a series of “invincible” weapons that he said would evade enemy defenses. The other hypersonic missiles are the Zirkon and the Avangard, both of which are faster and have a much longer range.
The Kinjal can carry a nuclear warhead as well as a conventional warhead, and recent reports say MiG-31 fighter jets have been deployed to Kaliningrad, putting numerous European capitals within reach. There is no indication of where the weapons depot attack was launched.
“It’s a signal to the West, because Putin is angry that the West dares to transfer all these weapons [para a Ucrânia]”, Kunertova told the BBC. “It is questionable that [o Kinjal] is so accurate, then it’s not a game-changer.”
James Acton says the Kinjal was thought to be a modified Iskander missile for fighter jets (military air combat aircraft), and Iskander-M missiles have been fired by Russian launchers since the beginning of the war.
Although the Iskander-M has a much shorter range than the air-launched missile, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said this week that Russia fired almost all of its Iskander missiles during the first 20 days of the war.
A US defense official reportedly said on Friday that Russian forces had fired more than 1,080 missiles since February 24.
“It’s a staggering number and a very significant fraction of Russia’s pre-war inventory,” says Acton, pointing to the increasing use of unguided bombs in Russian air strikes. “They could very well be short of precision ammo.”
