The Ukrainian air force announced that a U.S.-supplied Patriot missile had shot down a Russian KH-47 Kinzhal-type ballistic missile — the first time a Patriot has engaged a Russian airborne target.
Air Force commander Mykola Oleshchuk said in a Telegram post that the missile had been intercepted during an attack on the Ukrainian capital earlier in the week. “Yes, we shot down the ‘unique’ Kinzhal,” Oleshchuk wrote. “It happened during the night-time attack on May 4 in the skies of the Kyiv region.”
Experts have pointed out that while Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed the Kinzhal is hypersonic, it really isn’t. It’s a souped-up version of a ground-launched Iskander ballistic missile, with only fairly minor modifications for the new launch method — deploying it from an advanced MIG-31.
“To meet the criteria to be classed as an HGV or HCM, a missile has to be highly maneuverable,” Sidharth Kaushal, Ph.D., of the UK-based defense think tank RUSI explained. “Everything I’ve seen indicates Kinzhal is just an air-launched Iskander, a quasi-ballistic missile.”
But it’s still quite an achievement for the Patriot to bring down a missile going at least Mach 7.
In 2018, Putin claimed his military had created three hypersonic weapons that could defeat any anti-missile defense system the U.S. possessed.
“The missile flying at a hypersonic speed, ten times faster than the speed of sound, can also maneuver at all phases of its flight trajectory,” Putin said. “Which also allows it to overcome all existing and, I think, prospective anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense systems, delivering nuclear and conventional warheads to a range of over 2,000 kilometers [1,200 miles].”
Ukraine was happy to prove Putin wrong — and give him a slap in the face to boot.
“They were saying that the Patriot is an outdated American weapon, and Russian weapons are the best in the world,” Air Force spokesman Yurii Ihnat said on Ukraine’s Channel 24 television. “Well, there is confirmation that it effectively works against even a super-hypersonic missile,” Ihnat said.
He said successfully intercepting the Kinzhal was “a slap in the face for Russia.”
In a Telegram post on Saturday, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, said he had thanked U.S. Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for the ongoing American aid to Ukraine.
Zaluzhnyi said he also briefed Milley “about the situation at the front and preparations” for Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russia.
Ukraine has not said when it might launch the counteroffensive, but it is widely anticipated this spring.
Russia probably has a limited number of hypersonic missiles just as Ukraine’s supply of Patriots is finite. The takedown of the Kinzhal means that Russia will have to deploy its hypersonic weapons more cautiously.
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