Vladimir Putin has deployed the use of deadly hypersonic missiles in Ukraine for the first time ever, as the conflict in Ukraine takes a dark turn. The Russian military says it used the Kinzhal hypersonic missile to destroy an underground ammunition depot in Delyatyn, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, according to local news outlet Zvezda.
Details about the operation remain scarce, but Russia has previously bragged about its hypersonic weapons arsenal. Missiles such as the 3M22 Zircon are said to be so fast and able to fly so low that they evade traditional anti-missile defense systems. Such weapons are believed to have a range of around 1,000 kilometers.
Britain’s defense intelligence chief described it as an emerging ”strategy of attrition.” Without major cities captured, Russia seems to be turning to the “reckless and indiscriminate use of firepower” that will worsen the humanitarian crisis, Lt. Gen. Jim Hockenhull said Friday.
The assessment was echoed by the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based foreign policy think tank, in a report this week. The group warned that since Russia’s “lightning offensive designed to take the capital” had failed, the military appeared to be settling in for an extended campaign “designed to suffocate Ukraine.”
The strategy would likely involve attacking civilian areas, destroying cities and blocking off supplies, possibly leading to famine, according to the analysis. The organization later drew parallels to an artificial famine engineered by the Kremlin in the 1930s that killed millions of Ukrainians — a Soviet attempt to “subjugate the Ukrainian nation.”
