The team of aviation enthusiasts at the Fuselage Creations is turning scraps of wreckage from a downed Russia’s long-range ‘Kh-101’ cruise missile into souvenir key fobs and selling them.
“This missile was produced in December 2022 and was aimed at attacking the city of Kyiv,” the team said in a Facebook post.
The message added that the Ukrainian Armed Forces shot down the missile, but do not have information about the platform from which the missile was launched. Most likely, it was a Bear-H strategic bomber.
The Kh-101 series was developed as a long-range, standoff cruise missile to replace the aging Kh-55 and Kh-555 air-launched cruise missiles. It is 7.45m in length and 0.51m in diameter. At launch the missile weighs 2,300-2,400 kg and is fired without a booster, using the launching aircraft’s momentum at release to give it initial velocity.
The missile carries a conventional 450 kg warhead, and can be equipped with high explosive, penetrating, or cluster/submunition warheads. A stealthy missile is designed to defeat air defense systems by flying at low, terrain-hugging altitudes to avoid radar systems.
The team of aviation enthusiasts at the Fuselage Creations is turning wreckage from the newest Russian missile into key fobs and selling them abroad to use that funding to buy equipment and vehicles for Ukraine’s armed forces.