Here, Ukrainian fighters use a
surface-to-air missile produced in Britain to down a sophisticated Russian
helicopter worth £12 million.
In order to strike the adjacent
Russian Kamov KA-52 helicopter, soldiers from the 95th Air Assault Brigade
of Ukraine, located in Zhytomyr, in the country’s northwest, employed a
Martlet missile, also known as the Starstreak in the UK.
Because of its battlefield
management system, which enables it to share data with other aircraft to
coordinate assault activities, the Russian single-seat attack helicopter is
known as the “Black Shark” and has been dubbed Russia’s “deadliest
helicopter.”
Despite costing £12 million,
it was unable to detect the Ukrainian missile in time because the KA-52 looked
to have been hit less than 30 seconds after the Martlet was fired.
Despite the fact that the
chopper is not damaged in the video, Ukrainian defense sources assert that it
was shot down.
The martlet, a legendary
English bird that never roosts, inspired Thales Air Defence to create the
lightweight surface-to-air missile for the UK.
It is “ideal for asymmetric
littoral operations” since it can be launched from a number of air, land, and
sea platforms at a variety of targets with extremely high precision, reducing
collateral damage.
In defiance of Vladimir
Putin’s warnings not to provide Kyiv with the cutting-edge weapons, Britain
committed earlier this month to join the US in deploying long-range
missile systems to Ukraine to aid in defending against the Russian
incursion.
Britain will provide M270
launchers, which can shoot precisely guided rockets up to 50 miles, more than
doubling the range of current artillery, according to Defense Secretary Ben
Wallace. Three of the cars are anticipated to be sent from the UK at first.
It follows the delivery of
four M142 HIMARS launchers, which are lighter and easier to maneuver than M270
launchers, to Kyiv’s soldiers by Joe Biden.
After a Russian missile strike
on Ukraine’s central city of Kremenchuk on Monday, it is believed that
many civilians were killed or injured in a busy shopping center there. This
attack on the sophisticated Russian helicopter follows that incident.
According to Ukraine’s air
force headquarters, two long-range X-22 missiles fired from Tu-22M3 bombers
flying out of Shaykovka airfield in the Kaluga area of Russia caused at least
10 fatalities and more than 40 injuries.
The number of casualties is
“unimaginable,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote in a Telegram
post, citing claims that more than 1,000 citizens were inside at the time of
the strike.
Images from the site showed
massive black smoke plumes rising from a burning shopping mall as rescue
workers rushed to the area and terrified onlookers watched.
The target, according to
Zelensky, posed “no threat to the Russian army” and had “no strategic value.”
The ‘people’s attempts to live a normal life, which make the occupiers so
upset,’ he claimed, are being sabotaged by Russia.
On the day Zelensky attended
the G7 conference to ask G7 leaders to provide missile defense systems, Boris
Johnson spoke out against Vladimir Putin’s “cruelty and barbarism,” saying it
would bolster allies’ resolve to oppose Putin.
The attack, according to Mr.
Johnson, “has once again demonstrated the depths of depravity and savagery to
which the Russian commander would stoop.”
