Russia claims it hit Ukrainian weapons storage with hypersonic missile

Russia on Saturday said it struck a Ukrainian weapons storage facility with a hypersonic missile.

A video shared by the Russian Defense Ministry shows a missile striking a building and obliterating it on impact.

“Destruction of a weapons depot of the Armed Forces of Ukraine by high-precision missile weapons strike,” the ministry wrote. “We can see the exact hit of an underground hangar with weapons and ammunition.”

Russian Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said the strike was carried out on Friday and destroyed a “large underground storage facility for missiles and aviation ammunition” in the village of Deliatyn in the Ivano-Frankivsk region.

Russian officials also claimed to have destroyed a Ukrainian convoy earlier on Saturday with similar high-precision weapon strikes.

Last year, Russia conducted its first successful test of a hypersonic missile, which flies in the atmosphere at more than five times the speed of sound.

Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, but the offensive has stalled amid stiff resistance from Ukrainian forces.

The Russian military has bombed and shelled Ukrainian cities, and has nearly destroyed Mariupol in the southeastern part of the country. Strikes have also been carried out against civilians, including against a maternity hospital and a theater where hundreds of citizens were estimated to have been hiding.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday night said in a Facebook video address that Russian military commanders “are not able to offer their political leadership anything but cruel and erroneous tactics to exhaust us.”

“Nothing but constant strikes at the civilian population, peaceful cities, people, children,” he said. “But this tactic of the Russian military only worsens the situation for the Russian state.”