Russian Warship Lights Up Dusk Sky With Precision Missile Launches In Black Sea
This footage shows how a beautiful dusk sky is lit up as four missiles are launched high in the air by a Russian warship and zoom away towards their intended targets.
Newsflash obtained the video from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of the Russian Federation on Saturday (26th March).
The Russian MoD said (in English): “Russian Armed Forces has [sic] launched a precision-guided missile strike on Ukrainian military infrastructure.
“The crew of a small missile ship of the Black Sea Fleet has launched four Kalibr cruise missiles at military facilities of the Ukrainian Armed Forces from the Black Sea. As a result of an accurate hit, the high-precision weaponry destroyed [a] weapons and military equipment depot on the territory of Zhitomir Region.”
Zhytomyr Oblast is located in northern Ukraine.
Kalibr missiles were first used by the Russian Navy in the Syrian civil war, which started in 2011 and is ongoing. The current Russo-Ukrainian War is the only other conflict in which they have reportedly been used, again by the Russian Navy.
They are developed by NPO Novator, which is headquartered in Yekaterinburg, Russia.
Several variants in the Kalibr missile family fly at sub-sonic speeds while achieving supersonic speed as they near their target. The supersonic speed of these variants means that they cannot be intercepted by existing missile defence systems.
Russian military spokespeople have claimed that the Russian Armed Forces have destroyed numerous Ukrainian military depots with high-precision weapons.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy demanded that Western nations provide Ukraine with more military hardware yesterday (Sunday, 27th March).
Though several countries have promised to send anti-armour and anti-aircraft missiles, as well as small arms, Mr Zelenskyy has said Kyiv is still not getting what it needs.
Despite this, the Ukrainian Armed Forces say they have inflicted heavy losses on the Russian Armed Forces so far during the invasion, which began on 24th February.
According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Russians had lost nearly 17,000 personnel, 586 tanks, 1,694 armoured combat vehicles, 302 artillery systems, 95 MLR systems, 54 air defence units, 123 aircraft, 127 helicopters, 1,150 vehicles, seven vessels, 73 fuel tank trucks, 66 UAVs of the operational and tactical-level, 21 units of special equipment, and four mobile SRBM systems as of this morning (Monday, 28th March).
However, due to the difficulties of corroborating information from war zones, these figures have not yet been independently verified.
It is believed that Russian President Vladimir Putin had underestimated the Ukrainians’ resolve and was hoping to take over Ukraine in a matter of days.
Though the Russian Armed Forces have occupied swathes of territory in northern, eastern and southern Ukraine, major cities, such as Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odesa, remain in Ukrainian hands.
There are also signs the Ukrainians are pushing the Russians back from around Kyiv, Kharkiv and Mykolaiv.