Russian hypersonic missiles in the Ukraine war?
Experts now have doubts - and see "Signal to the West"
Created: 03/22/2022, 14:27
By: Linus Prien
Russia shared a video allegedly destroying a weapons depot with "Kinzhal" hypersonic missiles during the Ukraine war.
experts doubt.
Washington, DC - The Russian Defense Ministry tweeted that it had used hypersonic missiles in the Ukraine conflict and destroyed a Ukrainian weapons depot.
However, experts doubt whether Russia actually used Kinzhal missiles - and whether the destroyed building is actually a Ukrainian arms depot.
Ukraine War: Is Russia Using Hypersonic Missiles?
According to Russia, it had used the new weapon twice in Ukraine in the past few days.
According to Russian information, the rockets, which are about eight meters long, fly extremely fast and high, but remain manoeuvrable.
They are therefore very difficult to intercept.
US Defense Department spokesman John Kirby did not directly confirm the use of the Kinzhal missile on Monday.
“We have seen the Russians claim that they are using a hypersonic missile.
We are unable to refute this claim, but neither are we able to independently verify it," he said.
Ukraine war: expert sees “signal to the West”
The armaments expert Frank Sauer from the University of the Federal Armed Forces in Munich told the
"
Tagesschau": "It is not a high-tech miracle weapon, but goes back to technology from the 1980s that the Russian army has adapted.
We don't know - we have to say this quite frankly - not everything that distinguishes this rocket.
But you can still say: militarily it is not a "game changer" in the Ukraine war, but primarily a political signal to the West, because the system can also reach any city in Europe within a few minutes.
But of course that was the case before the war.”
War in Ukraine: Doubts about Russian video of Kinzhal attack on a Ukrainian weapons depot
Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin's defense ministry claimed via Twitter last Saturday that the hypersonic missile was used to destroy a Ukrainian weapons cache.
The ministry released a 27-second video that is said to have documented the alleged attack.
However, experts immediately doubted whether the video actually showed what the Russian Ministry of Defense had claimed.
On the one hand, several experts noticed that there were no subsequent detonations.
Ammunition stores would have led to several detonations in a fire like the one visible in the video.
In the video they are missing.
Second, The War Zone
platform
identified the drone that recorded the video as Orlan-10.
However, the drone only has a range of 120 to 150 kilometers.
The range can also increase up to 600 kilometers.
In these cases, however, the drone is lost.
The weapons depot that was allegedly destroyed is located in western Ukraine.
So the drone should have started from Belarus or pro-Russian parts of Moldova.
The War Zone
assumes that the video is fake.
In fact, a farm is shown that was destroyed by conventional bombardment a week ago.
Ukraine war: hypersonic missiles?
Expert suspects Russian propaganda strategy
Sauer did not rule out the Russian use of hypersonic missiles.
In an interview with n-tv, however, Sauer doubted the statements made by the Russian Ministry of Defense.
The shelling of a farm with "Kinschal rockets" is not likely: "We have observed from the beginning that certain propaganda is badly done.
It fits into the general pattern: a constant stream of false information, so that at some point nobody knows what is true and what is not."
(dpa/lp)
