Russian naval forces launched long-range cruise missiles on Tuesday evening from the waters off Sevastopol, a port city in Russia-held Crimea, according to expert analysis of video verified by The Washington Post.
“We thought it was a plane flying,” the narrator says. “It’s normal that planes fly here. But shooting is something serious.”
Additional video filmed around the same time shows eight flares with long tails that appear to be airborne missiles flying over the Black Sea. Both videos were verified by The Post.
Footage shared by the Russian defense ministry on social media shows large fireballs emanating from a warship where the ministry said Russian forces had fired Kalibr cruise missiles toward military assets in Orzhev, a village outside of the city of Rivne. Rivne is located more than 200 miles west of Kyiv and would be within the range a 3M-14 Kalibr missile could travel if it was fired from Sevastopol.
The tightly cropped video first shows multiple large explosions in succession above a ship, while someone off camera counts, “First, second, third, fourth.” The video then cuts to a wider view of a sunset where the long tails of the eight missiles are visible. The Post was not able to verify the location of this launch.
Video reportedly of a Russian Project 21631 Buyan-M small missile ship launching 8 Kalibr-NK cruise missiles from near Sevastopol. https://t.co/GcWqUpoXLh pic.twitter.com/VvU3l5yYCK
— Rob Lee (@RALee85) March 22, 2022
“As a result of the strike, a large depot of weapons and military equipment of the Ukrainian troops, including those received from Western countries, was destroyed,” a statement on the ministry’s Telegram channel said.
U.S. officials said they could not confirm that the weapons had been used. Ukrainian authorities have not confirmed the deployment of the missiles or the destruction of an arsenal near Rivne.
The Post could not independently verify Russia’s claim that a weapons depot had been destroyed.
Ian Williams, deputy director of the missile defense project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said he was nearly positive the videos showed the launch of 3M-14 Kalibr cruise missiles.
“These are Russia’s long-range naval sea-based cruise missiles, similar to the U.S. Tomahawk,” he told The Post in an email. “They use satellite navigation along with some onboard inertial guidance.”
“This was almost certainly launched by the Russian Black Sea Fleet,” Mark Cancian, senior adviser for the international security program at CSIS, said in an email. Kalibr missiles are “at the high end of Russian capabilities,” he added. “Russia uses them to attack the highest priority targets. They seem to be doing more of that in western Ukraine. It may be part of an effort to attack strategic targets, that is, targets that matter in the long war.”
The 3M-14 or SS-N-30A cruise missile, commonly referred to as the Kalibr missile, can be fired from ships or submarines toward land targets. It can travel a maximum range of about 1,550 miles, according to the CSIS Missile Defense Project.
3M14 Kalibr
Pop-out
wings
Stabilizers
Top view
Turbojet
engine
Guidance
system
Fuel
Booster
Side view
Turbojet
air intake
Payload
Control
fins
20 feet, 4 inches
6 foot person for scale
3M14 Kalibr
Stabilizers
Pop-out
wings
Top view
Guidance
system
Turbojet
engine
Fuel
Booster
Side view
Control
fins
Turbojet
air intake
Payload
20 feet, 4 inches
6 foot person for scale
3M14 Kalibr
Pop-out wings
Top view
Turbojet
engine
Guidance
system
Booster
Fuel
Payload
Side view
Turbojet
air intake
Stabilizers
Control fins
20 feet, 4 inches
6 foot person for scale
The missiles, designed to penetrate the air defenses of stationary ground targets, fly autonomously and largely horizontally at low altitude, along preprogrammed waypoints. Their route can be updated midcourse via satellite communication. Cruise missiles can be highly accurate compared to ballistic missiles.
Low altitude
flight path,
parallel
to ground
Tracks
terrain
during
flight
Route
can be
updated
by satellite
Launch
from sea
Target
Approximate 1,550 mile range
Not to scale
3M14T Kalibr
Low altitude
flight path, parallel to
ground
Tracks
terrain
during
flight
Route
can be
updated
by satellite
Launch
from sea
Target
Approximate 1,550 mile range
Not to scale
Low altitude flight path, parallel to ground
Tracks terrain
during flight
Route can be updated through satellites
Launch
from sea
Target
Approximate 1,550 mile range
Not to scale
The standard 3M14T land-attack missile reportedly contains a nearly 1,000-pound high explosive warhead. It is often used to attack storage facilities, command posts, seaports and airports.
Russia stuck barracks in the southern port city of Mykolaiv with a Kalibr missile earlier this month, the New York Times reported, killing at least eight Ukrainian soldiers who had been sleeping there. The region’s governor said at least 19 others were wounded.
A Pentagon official said at a background briefing Wednesday that the United States still assessed that Russia has “the vast majority” of its inventory of surface-to-air missiles and cruise missiles.
Russia first used the SS-N-30A Kalibr missile in Syria in October 2015, when it launched 26 missiles from Russian naval vessels in the Caspian Sea, at forces fighting the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Dan Lamothe contributed to this report.
