Ukraine has successfully tested a new anti-ship cruise missile, ‘Neptune’ and a modernized S-125 surface-to-air missile system, at a firing range in the Odesa Oblast Wednesday.
Olexandr Turchynov, the chairman of Ukraine’s Defence and Security Council was quoted as saying during a press briefing after the tests by Kyivpost Thursday. “The task put today before cruise missiles was to check the range and accuracy of hitting surface targets”, adding that the target was destroyed at a distance of 280 kilometres.
In addition, Mr. Turchynov said that to strengthen coastal defence, the accuracy and reliability of hitting the conditional opponent’s watercraft by the S-125 missile systems, which had undergone a deep modernization at the enterprises of the Ukrainian defence industry, were checked.
Despite its qualification as an air defence missile system, the S-125 was also engaged against surface targets in the Black Sea. “The modernized C-125s have proven their effectiveness,” Turchynov said.
According to Ukraine’s defence production concern UkrOboronProm, the Neptune is a subsonic cruise missile based on the Kh-35 project, an unfinished Soviet-designed subsonic anti-ship missile later put into service in Russia in 2003.
The Neptunes, designed by the Luch Bureau and produced by the Artem Plant in Kyiv, are reportedly effective against naval platforms with displacements of up to 5,000 tons – which would include all of the Russian landing ships and frigates currently in service.
