russia military weapons Kalibr missile launch
© Russia Ministry of DefenseView of a Kalibr missile launch
Russia's Defense Ministry (MoD) announced Wednesday that its forces have taken out a large batch of weapons and ammunition that had been shipped to Kiev by outside Western countries.

Specifically, Russian warships launched Kalibr missiles from the Black Sea, targeting and destroying a military warehouse said to contain "a large batch of foreign weapons and ammunition, supplied by the US and European countries to the Ukrainian army," according to the MoD statement. While not acknowledged by the Ukrainians or US, it comes after the Kremlin vowed to target Western arms transfers into the country.

The location was described in state media as being in the territory of the city of Zaporozhye, in southeast Ukraine near Dnieper River. This comes after Monday it was widely reported that Russia struck some five to six Ukrainian railroad facilities as part of efforts to disrupt foreign weapons transfers.


Russian state media is reporting that Wednesday's long-range missile attack on foreign supplies targeted an aluminum warehouse which had been converted to a weapons depot.

The day prior Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had warned: "These weapons will be a legitimate target for the Russian Armed Forces" - in a message aimed at both Kiev and its Western backers.

"Warehouses, including in the west of Ukraine, have become such a target more than once. How else could it be? NATO is essentially going to war with Russia through a proxy and arming that proxy. War means war," he stressed.

A series of statements from Western officials, including from the State Dept. and Pentagon denied that Ukraine is scene of a current proxy war, instead stressing Russia's aggression. However, countries like Germany and Poland have lately confirmed the authorized transfer of tanks and other heavy weaponry, which the Kremlin has declared as "legitimate targets" once they get inbound.