Ashish Dangwal reported in Eurasian Times, on September 16, that a video of an unidentified flying object that crashed in Stavropol, Russia, around 350 kilometers (220 miles) from the Ukrainian border, went viral on the internet. The Russian media reports initially led people to believe it was a Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Later, Twitter users noted similarities between the wreckage and the Russian Kinzhal missile.
A Twitter user going by the handle LotA shared a video of the incident, which happened on September 14. According to the user, the unidentified object was a Russian Kinzhal hypersonic missile.
The Kh-47M2 Kinzhal (“dagger”, NATO reporting name: Killjoy) is a nuclear-capable hypersonic aero-ballistic air-to-surface missile. It has a claimed range of more than 2,000 km (1,200 mi), Mach 12 speed (2.5 mi/s), and an ability to perform evasive maneuvers at every stage of its flight. It can carry both conventional and nuclear warheads and can be launched from Tu-22M3 bombers or MiG-31K interceptors. It has been deployed at airbases in Russia’s Southern Military District and Western Military District. The Kinzhal entered service in December 2017 and is one of the six new Russian strategic weapons unveiled by Russian President Vladimir Putin on 1 March 2018, who claims some of them (certainly very few, at least due to their unit cost) have been fired during the war against Ukraine.