Russia has used more modern-day systems to only make a few attacks on Ukraine, something that Ukrainian officials believe is meant more of a psychological assault than an effective military victory in the battlefield.
Colonel Yuriy Ihnat, the head of communication in the Air Force Command of Ukraine, has confirmed that Russia has deployed the use of hypersonic Zircon missile and a nuclear-capable medium-range ballistic missile in Russia called Oreshnik. These weapons, according to Ihnat have been fired in isolated instances and not as a part of the large scale missile salvoes of Russia.
Ihnat commented to RBC-Ukraine that these launches are demonstrative. They are supposed to generate psychological pressure.
As Ihnat has stressed the two kinds of missile systems have different purposes and cannot be compared with the kinds of missiles that are normally used in mass attacks. He further reported that the name Oreshnik is not formally recognized by the Air Force of Ukraine, and the missile was actually just an updated form of a Soviet-era ballistic system, but not a brand new weapon.
Russia is also said to have deployed this missile to attack the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro and the Ukrainian western city of Lviv. As Ihnat noted, Lviv is close to NATO borders, indicating that the launches were meant to deliver a message to the governments in the west.
Ihnat said that Russia was attempting to demonstrate that it possessed weapons that were not interceptable.
In other comments, Ihnat also discussed the usage of the Zircon missile by Russia, which is an anti-ship weapon, but has been modified to strike on land targets in Ukraine. Ihnat states that Zircon missiles have been fired on occupied Crimea into the regions of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Vinnytsia, but the number of such launches has been minimal.
The missile is launched to heights of over 40 kilometers and travels in the same path as Kh-22 missile Ihnat said. The air defense troops of Ukraine have been able to intercept Zircon missiles, he added, which has relied heavily on how the U.S. supplied Patriot air defense systems are placed.
Other possible recent Tungusic applications of the Zircon missile were a nighttime strike on January 20 where Ukrainian officials reported the launch of a missile by occupied Crimea into the Vinnytsia region. Previous cases were a November 14 explosion in the northeastern city of Sumy where the chance of a Zircon miss attack was not eliminated.
Ukraine analysts also discovered a 3M22 Zircon missile was used after inspecting the remnants of an August 21 attack on the city.