The Tu-22M3 bomber launched a hypersonic missile
The captured chief of staff of the 36th Brigade of the Ukrainian Marine Corps, Colonel Dmitry Kormyankov, said that if the marines had left the Mariupol Azovmash plant earlier, more lives would have been saved. The colonel made this statement after he surrendered to the forces of the People's militia of the DPR and LPR. It is significant that at the same time, the release of civilians held by the national battalion "Azov" (banned in the Russian Federation) from the territory of the enterprise began.
In turn, the brigade commander, Colonel Vladimir Baranyuk, who was also captured, said that during the fighting in Mariupol, his subordinates were left without ammunition and the Kiev regime did nothing to help them.
Baranyuk and Kormyankov speak Russian. Their confessions are capitulation. Unfortunately, this is not heard in Kiev. The officers note: they were repeatedly informed that help was coming, that they needed to hold out a little longer. But none of the promised things happened. The ultimatum of the leadership of the Azov battalion also testifies to the critical situation at Azovmash: civilians will be released only in exchange – 15 people for a ton of food and medicines.
As a result, with the mediation of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, 51 people left the territory of the enterprise. Deputy Prime Minister of the Ukrainian government Irina Vereshchuk reported on this occasion in her Telegram channel that "all women, children and elderly people from Azovstal were evacuated. This part of the Mariupol humanitarian operation has been completed."
However, a new stage of this operation immediately began: the complete destruction of the blocked militants of the Azov national battalion by any means available to the DLNR militia. The Ukrainian authorities are not able to save their defenders, and they are not going to do it. Vladimir Zelensky's order to stand to the end and shoot deserters has not been canceled.
Dmitry Kormyankov gave even more interesting testimony. The fighters of his unit and the Azov battalion used the ground subscriber equipment of Elon Musk's Starlink satellite company. The equipment was specially delivered by helicopters before the events in Mariupol.
This fact helps to understand how the besieged can broadcast their appeals to world leaders on the Internet with pleas for salvation and liberation. According to the head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, the American entrepreneur became an accomplice to the crimes of the Ukrainian Nazis against civilians of Ukraine and Russian servicemen.
During the holidays, the situation around the island of Zmeiny in the Black Sea seriously worsened. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, since May 7, Kiev has made several attempts to capture the island with the help of air and sea landings. Thanks to the competent actions of the units of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, they were thwarted.
In total, for two days, Kiev lost one Su-27 fighter and three Su-24 front-line bombers, three Mi-8 helicopters with troops on board and one Mi-24 attack aircraft during the attacks on the island. During the landing attempt, three Centaur-type amphibious assault boats were sunk, and 24 more bodies of Ukrainian servicemen were found on the shore.
According to preliminary data, only during the attempt to land on the coast, the Navy lost more than 50 people, it is not possible to calculate losses at sea. In addition, 29 different drones have been shot down in the area of the island since May 7, including eight Bayraktar TB2 strike aircraft.
It can be concluded that the Ukrainian military tried to unblock the channel for the supply of Western weapons by sea through Odessa. The island is a key point for this. At the same time, the Russian military is increasingly striking in this direction. According to the official representative of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, Major General Igor Konashenkov, "on the night of May 9, six Mi-8 and Mi-24 helicopters were destroyed by high-precision Onyx missiles of the Bastion coastal missile system near the village of Artsiz, Odessa region, near the Chervonoglinskoye military airfield."
Earlier, American and Western weapons and equipment delivered to Ukraine were destroyed by the same missiles in the same direction. It is noteworthy that the P-800 Onyx cruise missile before the special operation in Ukraine was presented exclusively as an anti-ship weapon. Now it turns out that it is capable of acting on areal stationary targets.
Against this background, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Yuri Borisov made an interesting statement to the Interfax news agency. According to him, Russia is creating a new generation of hypersonic missiles for various ground-based, air-based and sea-based carriers. "In terms of their characteristics, they will surpass existing and promising developments of leading states," the deputy chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation said, adding that the Tu–22M3M missile carrier is already testing a new product.
Currently, there is only one hypersonic missile – the Zircon. The missile has already been tested from ships of Project 22350 and multipurpose nuclear submarines of Project 885M. As stated by Deputy Defense Minister Alexei Krivoruchko, it is planned to adopt it in 2022. He also said that the first carriers of the missile will be the ships of project 1155 "Marshal Shaposhnikov" and the multipurpose submarine of project 949A "Irkutsk".
According to some reports, "Zircon" is a further development of the Onyx rocket. If this is the case, then the Bastion complexes will receive hypersonic ammunition in the near future. Well, by analogy with India, where the Russian BrahMos machine was successfully adapted for use by the Su-30MKI fighter, we can conclude that it is the Zircon that will be under the wing of the Tu-22M3M bomber. According to its characteristics, this aircraft will be able to carry up to three missiles.
