Russia fires hypersonic missile for first time during Ukraine war
19 March 2022, 09:44
The missile is said to have destroyed an underground warehouse storing missiles and aviation ammunition of Ukrainian troops.
Russia has used its latest hypersonic missile for the first time during its attack on Ukraine, a military spokesman said.
Russian Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said the hypersonic missiles, known as Kinzhal, destroyed an underground warehouse storing missiles and aviation ammunition of Ukrainian troops in the western Ivano-Frankivsk region.
Mr Konashenkov also said the Russian forces used the anti-ship missile system Bastion to strike Ukrainian military facilities near the Black Sea port of Odesa.
Russia first used the weapon during its military campaign in Syria in 2016.
Ukrainian officials said hospitals, schools and buildings where people sought safety have been attacked.
Ludmyla Denisova, the Ukrainian Parliament’s human rights commissioner, said at least 130 people had survived Wednesday’s bombing of a Mariupol theatre that was being used a shelter.
“But according to our data, there are still more than 1,300 people in these basements, in this bomb shelter,” Ms Denisova told Ukrainian television. “We pray that they will all be alive, but so far there is no information about them.”
Satellite images on Friday from Maxar Technologies showed a long line of cars leaving Mariupol as people tried to evacuate.
One person was reported killed in a missile attack near Lviv, the closest strike yet to the city’s centre. Satellite photos showed the strike destroyed a repair hangar and appeared to damage two other buildings.
Ukraine said it shot down two of six missiles in the volley, which came from the Black Sea.
Lviv has become a crossroads for people fleeing from other parts of Ukraine and for others entering to deliver aid or join the fight, with its population swelling by some 200,000.
Early morning barrages that hit a residential building in the Podil neighbourhood of Kyiv killed at least one person. Emergency services said 98 people were evacuated from the building and Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said 19 were wounded.
Ukrainian officials said a fireman was also killed when Russian forces shelled an area where firefighters were trying to put out a blaze in the village of Nataevka, in the Zaporizhzhia region.
Two others were killed when strikes hit residential and administrative buildings in the eastern city of Kramatorsk, according to the regional governor, Pavlo Kyrylenko.
Major General Oleksandr Pavlyuk, who is leading the defence of the region around Ukraine’s capital, said his forces are well-positioned to defend the city and vowed: “We will never give up. We will fight until the end. To the last breath and to the last bullet.”
