Russia says destroys HIMARS ammunition depot in Ukraine's Odesa, hits two Howitzers in Kherson region

Russia says its forces have destroyed an ammunition depot containing US-made HIMARS rockets in Ukraine’s Odesa with Kalibr missiles.

In a statement issued on Sunday, Russia’s Defense Ministry said its sea-based Kalibr missiles had destroyed a depot where Western-made anti-aircraft systems, including rockets for US-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS), were housed.

“High-precision sea-based long-range Kalibr missiles near the village of Mayorskoye in the Odessa Region destroyed an ammunition depot with missiles for the American HIMARS multiple-launch rocket systems and Western-made anti-aircraft systems,” said spokesman Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov at a press conference, TASS news agency reported.

The Kalibr (NATO classification: SS-N-27 Sizzler) is, according to TASS, a Russian cruise missile developed and produced by the Novator design bureau in Yekaterinburg (part of the Almaz-Antey Air Defense Concern). In several occasions since the beginning of the war in February, Russia has managed to destroy similar depots in Ukraine.

Ukrainian authorities, however, claimed a granary had been hit.

According to Odesa’s regional administration, two missiles had been shot down over the sea, but that three had struck agricultural targets.

Russia commenced its “special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24. Since the onset of the operation, the United States and its European allies have unleashed a flood of advanced weapons into Ukraine and imposed waves of unprecedented sanctions on Moscow, despite the Kremlin’s repeated warnings that such measures would only prolong the war.

Russia says the operation was launched in Ukraine to demilitarize and “de-Nazify” its neighbor and to “liberate” the Donbass, which is composed of the two breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk. The Russian military has said it has fully captured Luhansk and has concentrated its efforts to seize the other region.

Russia relocates three warplanes to Kaliningrad near Lithuania

“Three Mig-31 aircraft with Kinzhal hypersonic missiles were relocated to the Chkalovsk airfield in the Kaliningrad region.”

Russia deployed Kinzhal hypersonic missile 3 times in Ukraine

Separately on Sunday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said since the beginning of the operation, Russia has deployed hypersonic Kinzhal (Dagger) missiles three times in Ukraine.

“We have deployed it three times during the special military operation,” Shoigu said in an interview broadcast on Rossiya 1. “And three times it showed brilliant characteristics.”

President Vladimir Putin says Kinzhal missile is “an ideal weapon.” It flies at 10 times the speed of sound, making it extremely difficult to be intercepted by the missile defense systems. The missiles are part of an array of new hypersonic weapons he presented in 2018 in a speech in which he underscored that they could hit almost any point in the world and evade a US-built missile shield.

Shoigu also said on Sunday that the missiles had proved effective in hitting high-value targets on all three occasions, praising them as beyond compare and as almost impossible to intercept when in flight.

Kinzhal missiles were first used about a month after the onset of the operation, hitting a large weapons depot in Ukraine’s western Ivano-Frankivsk region.

Earlier this week, Russia’s Defense Ministry said it had relocated three MiG-31E warplanes equipped with nuclear-capable hypersonic Kinzhal missiles to its exclave of Kaliningrad on the coast of the Baltic Sea, with the goal of being on “round-the-clock combat duty.”

The city of Kaliningrad, which fully belongs to Russia, is located between the EU and NATO members of Lithuania and Poland. The two countries have taken sides with Kiev in the war.

Late last month, Putin said the Russian Navy would receive what he called “formidable” hypersonic Zircon cruise missiles in coming months. The missiles are said to be capable of traveling at nine times the speed of sound, outrunning air defenses.

American military expert: US policy designed to prolong the Ukraine conflict

A senior American military expert says Russian President Vladimir Putin is right to blame the United States for working to prolong the conflict in Ukraine.

Senior Ukrainian spy found dead: Kiev

In another development on Sunday, the office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general said Oleksandr Nakonechny, a regional head of Ukraine's SBU intelligence services, was found with gunshot injuries in a room of his apartment in the city of Kropyvnytsky late Saturday after his wife heard gunfire.

Kropyvnytsky is the administrative capital of Ukraine’s central Kirovohrad Oblast.

Nakonechny led the SBU in the oblast since January 2021. There are unconfirmed reports that he had committed suicide.

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