Putin's secret weapon discovered in Ukraine: 'it has no equal on earth'
Near the Ukrainian city of Kostyantynivka, something never before seen took place in the sky. White tracks of fighter jets could be seen above the city, but there immediately appeared to be something strange about these tracks.
Indeed, the lower track split in two and a new object accelerated rapidly toward the other vapor track until they crossed and a bright orange flash illuminated the sky. What was happening over Kostyantynivka?
Ukrainians discovered from the fallen debris that they had just witnessed the destruction of Russia's newest weapon: the S-70 stealth combat drone.
And it is certainly not an ordinary drone. This heavy, unmanned vehicle, called Okhotnik (Prowler), is the size of a fighter plane, but without a cockpit. It is very difficult to track and its developers claim that it simply did not exist on our planet before. But where did the second track that could be seen come from then?
It seems that the second track on the video came from a Russian Su-57 fighter jet, which apparently pursued it to re-establish contact with this rudderless Prowler. Since they both then flew into a Ukrainian air defense zone, it is believed that the Russians decided to destroy Okhotnik to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. Moscow and Kiev are not commenting on this remarkable incident.
This Russian S-70 weighs more than 20 tons and reportedly has a range of 6,000 km. It is shaped like an arrow and very similar to the American X-47B, another stealth combat drone made a decade ago. This Okhotnik should be able to carry bombs and missiles to attack both ground and air targets and conduct reconnaissance. This aircraft was designed to work smoothly with Russia's fifth-generation Su-57 fighter aircraft. But over Kostyantynivka, it clearly went wrong. Until last weekend, there was not even any evidence that the S-70 was ever used in Russia's two-and-a-half-year war in Ukraine. But with the discovery of the debris, that now changes.
(SR for Tagtik/Source: BBC News/Illustration picture: Picture by ahenobarbus henocied via wikicommons licensed under the creative commons attribution-share alike 4.0 international license)