Russia claims to have shot down 7 Ukrainian missiles in Kursk

"Our air defense fighters repelled an attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces last night," Kursk Region Governor Alexei Smirnov wrote on his Telegram channel. He did not provide further details.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry , a total of 23 Ukrainian drones were destroyed on Russian territory. However, the ministry did not mention the number of missiles lost.

Russian military analyst Roman Alyokhin also said that "Kursk suffered a massive attack with foreign-made missiles" last night. "There was noise everywhere and there were a lot of missiles," said Roman Alyokhin.

After US President Joe Biden authorized Kiev to fire US-supplied missiles at targets deep inside Russia, Ukraine fired ATACMS missiles and Storm Shadow cruise missiles at Russia. Moscow responded shortly thereafter with its newly developed hypersonic ballistic missile called Oreshnik.

It took the Ukrainian military several days to locate the remaining missile fragments after the attack on the city of Dnipro. For security reasons, the Ukrainian military did not disclose the exact location of the missile fragments.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the attack a serious escalation and called on Kiev’s allies to respond. Ukraine initially said the weapon appeared to be an intercontinental ballistic missile.

The US Department of Defense revealed that the design of the Oreshnik missile is based on the RS-26 Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). At the same time, it stated that this is an experimental missile and Russia may only possess a small number of Oreshnik missiles.

On the Russian side, President Vladimir Putin affirmed that Moscow will continue testing the Oreshnik missile and that the country's military has a significant number of these weapons.

Much remains unclear about the November 21 attack, including the extent of the damage caused by the missiles. Ukraine rarely discloses damage to military targets, fearing that such information would benefit Moscow.