Ukrainian Navy strikes at weapons depots on the outskirts of Kursk

On the night of July 31, the Armed Forces of Ukraine attacked a storage facility for weapons and military equipment near Kursk.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces reported on this.

The combat operations were conducted by the Ukrainian Navy units in cooperation with other Defense Forces components.

“Ukrainian soldiers will continue to take all possible legal measures to stop the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against our people,” the statement saidю.

Alexei Smirnov, acting governor of the Kursk region, confirmed the damage to military facilities near the city, saying that the strike caused a fire. Smirnov also added that no alarms went off in the city during the attack.

He also posted a photo of Russian soldiers wearing the uniform of the Russian Aerospace Forces, which indicates an attack on facilities near the local airfield.

According to NASA’s fire monitoring service, the strike was indeed on a facility that is most likely a storage facility for aviation weapons and equipment.

The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation traditionally declared all air targets “destroyed,” detailing that 11 UAVs were “intercepted” over Belgorod, four over Bryansk, and one UAV each over Kursk, Kaluga, Rostov regions, and temporarily occupied Crimea.

In addition, the statement of the Russian Defense Ministry said that a Neptune-MD cruise missile was “intercepted” over the Kursk region. The Ukrainian General Staff did not disclose information about the munition.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine confirmed attempts by Russian air defense to intercept Ukrainian weapons, but apparently, these attempts were unsuccessful.

Neptune missiles for hitting ground targets

Back in April 2023, an official of the Ukrainian defense ministry told The Drive on condition of anonymity that designers were working on modifying the Neptune anti-ship missile to strike land targets.

According to an anonymous source, the missile was to receive a new guiding system. The publication reported that the new missile could be launched from the same launcher as before.

It allegedly has a maximum range of 400 kilometers and a warhead weighing 350 kilograms (150 kilograms in the anti-ship version).

The official said that Ukraine has developed a guiding system based on GPS satellite signals that directs the missile to a predetermined target. During the final stretch of the flight, the missile’s infrared homing system searches for and captures the target based on a preloaded image.

This July, the Ukrainian military destroyed several vehicles from the S-400 air defense system near the village of Olenivka on Cape Tarkhankut in Crimea.

Oleksii Danilov, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, said that a new Ukrainian missile had hit the Russian system, without specifying its name.

Journalist Yurii Butusov said that the strike was carried out using an R-360 Neptune anti-ship missile modified for ground attack.