This is the moment one of Vladimir Putin’s £8million hypersonic missiles had to be exploded after falling into a Russian wheat field.
The 9,200mph Kinzhal – or ‘dagger’ – had been intended to be unleashed from a MiG-31 fighter jet on western Ukraine on August 11.
But it fell to the ground before the warplane reached its target, narrowly missing four nearby villages in Russia’s Tula region.
Farmworkers stumbled across it sticking out of the ground a month later.
Despite the blunder, the defence ministry still reported it as a successful strike on Ukraine.
Locals who thought a kamikaze drone had fallen were only told the nuclear-capable high-speed missile was simply an ‘explosive device’.
Farmers were upset that their cattle and pets were not also evacuated.
A controlled explosion saw a giant fireball blast and an ominous smoke trail into the sky.
Telegram channel Cheka-OGPU said the launch failure was due to an ‘abnormal operation of the system’.
The military ‘out of habit had reported the successful defeat of all targets’, on the day the missile was supposed to have been unleashed on Ivano-Frankivsk region in western Ukraine.
It represents a humiliation for Putin, who has been the driving force in developing hypersonic missiles in Russia.
The Kinzhal was one of six ‘next generation’ weapons unveiled by the Russian president in a speech in March 2018.
He has said these weapons could penetrate both existing and any future missile defence systems.
Two months before invading Ukraine, Putin said Russia was the global leader in hypersonic missiles.
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