Ukraine has been conducting successful tests of its new “Ruta” missile, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday.
During a speech at Tuesday’s 2024 Borys Paton National Prize presentation, he mentioned the new weapon in passing alongside talking about other recent developments.
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“We are talking, in particular, about Ukrainian missiles and drones. Phrases that until recently were from science fiction. And today they are reality.
“… successful tests of the new ‘Ruta’ missile are underway. The long-range ‘Neptune’ will soon become a terrible reality for the occupiers,” Zelensky said, in reference to Ukraine’s domestically-produced Neptune anti-ship missile that has likely received updates.
The military news outlet Militarnyi noted that the “Ruta” missile, produced by a company called Destinus, had previously been unveiled as part of Ukraine’s stand at the Eurosatory 2024 arms exhibition in Paris.
The Destinus brochure says the “Ruta” missile could be used for “intelligence [gathering], fast-response surveillance, fast disaster & emergency response, emergency cargo supply, target training, [and] strike.”
“The distinct advantage of RUTA lies in its combination of low cost, payload size and speed, which makes it ideal for multiple missions. Takeoff is booster-assisted, and landing is achieved with parachutes combined with dispensable airbags. Future versions will have the option of vertical landing,” the Destinus site reads.
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Militarnyi said Destinus is a European aerospace company founded in 2021 in Switzerland by Mikhail Kokorich, a Russian physicist and businessman who had renounced his Russian citizenship.
Zelensky also mentioned other developments in his Tuesday speech.
“The ‘Palyanytsya’ missile has entered mass production. The ‘Peklo’ drone missile successfully passed its first combat applications. The other day we handed over the first batch to our defense forces,” Zelensky said, referring to the “Palyanytsya” drone missile first used in combat in August and the “Peklo” missile unveiled on Dec. 6.
The majority of Ukraine’s missile development is believed to be located at the Yuzhmash facilities it inherited from the Soviet Union in the city of Dnipro, which was likely the target of Russia’s “Oreshnik” hypersonic intermediate-range ballistic missile on Nov. 21 – its first recorded use in combat.
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