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The target of a recent Russian missile strike that targeted the port of Odessa was a shipment of drones meant for Kiev forces, the Russian Defense Ministry announced on May 24. .
“On May 23, crews of Iskander missile systems carried out a group missile strike on a container ship that was transporting military assets to the port of Odessa, as well as a warehouse storing containers in that port. The ship was carrying about 100 containers with military cargo, including sea drones, UAVs and ammunition,” the ministry said in its daily briefing.
“As a result of the fire impact on these targets there was a secondary detonation of the ammunition and containers that were stored on the pier, as well as a heavy fire,” it added.
At the time of the strike, Russia media reported that some 20 Ukrainian troops were killed or wounded in the strike. However, Ukrainian media said that just one person was killed.
The main armament of the Iskander system used to carry out the strike is the 9M723 tactical quasi-ballistic missile, which is said to have a range of nearly 500 kilometers.
The highly-maneuverable missile can be armed with different conventional warheads, including a cluster munitions warhead, a fuel-air explosive enhanced-blast warhead, a high-explosive fragmentation warhead, an earth penetrator for bunker busting and an electromagnetic pulse device for anti-radar missions.
The missile is guided by a GLONASS-aided inertial navigation system. It can be also equipped with an optical seeker with a digitized scene-mapping area correlator system for terminal guidance.
Russia stepped up strikes on Ukrainian military targets in recent days in response to repeated attempts to attack its territories with drones. Despite taking heavy losses, Kiev forces are still trying to attack Russian territories, likely looking for a media victory to make up for recent defeats on the battlefield.
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