Sergey Chemezov, the head of Russia's Rostec State Corporation has announced that the company had further increased the production of Kinzhal (Dagger) hypersonic missiles.
Speaking to reporters on Sunday, he said that initially, "such a large quantity of this weapon was not required", but that the Kinzhals’ production has been increased since the beginning of the ongoing Russian special military operation in Ukraine.
He spoke after Lieutenant-General Sergey Kobylash, commander of the long-range aviation of the Russian Aerospace Forces, said that during the special operation, the Kinzhals "had repeatedly been used to destroy ground targets" of the Ukrainian army.
Valery Gerasimov, the head of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, for his part, revealed that Ukraine’s air defenses had failed to tackle the Kinzhal missiles, which he said were used for the first time in combat conditions in Ukraine.
The Kinzhal is a nuclear-capable ballistic missile, which has a range of more than 2,000 km (1,200 miles) and is typically launched from the MiG-31 supersonic multi-role fighter jet.
It is capable of reaching a speed of up to Mach 10 (12,250 km/h or 7,612 mph) while also performing evasive maneuvers, which helps the Kinzhal to be virtually invulnerable to enemy air missile defense systems.