Ukraine says it shot down advanced Russian missile
Celebrates first interception of hypersonic tech
KYIV — An American-made Patriot air-defense missile successfully intercepted one of the most sophisticated conventional weapons in Russia’s arsenal for the first time over Kyiv on Thursday night, the Ukrainian air force claimed Saturday.
The downing of a Russian hypersonic Kinzhal missile by a Patriot missile, confirmed by three senior US officials, appeared to offer the first proof that Russia’s hypersonic missiles — presented as invulnerable by President Vladimir Putin — could be defeated by current Western missile defense systems.
“I congratulate the Ukrainian people on a historic event,” Lieutenant General Mykola Oleshchuk, commander of the Ukrainian air force, said in a statement posted on the Telegram messaging app. “Yes, we have shot down the ‘unparalleled’ ‘Kinzhal.’”
The US officials said they were relying on information from the Ukrainian military coming through classified channels but added they had no reason to doubt its authenticity. Nevertheless, independent analysts were reluctant to confirm the interception until more information was available about the type of missile Russia fired and whether it was hit by a Patriot.
The Patriot is by far the most expensive single weapon system that the United States, Ukraine’s main military benefactor, has supplied to Ukraine, at a total cost of about $1.1 billion: $400 million for the system and $690 million for the missiles.
It was only last month that the first Patriot systems arrived in Ukraine, even though Ukraine had been pleading with the Pentagon for the weapons since the start of the war. For more than a year, Ukraine has had no air-defense system that could counter Russia’s arsenal of ballistic or hypersonic missiles like the Kinzhal.
Hypersonic missiles are longrange munitions capable of reaching speeds of at least Mach 5 — five times the speed of sound, or more than a mile a second. That speed was thought by many experts to render traditional air defense systems essentially useless, because by the time they can be detected on radars, they are nearly at their target.
“It is invincible against all existing and prospective missile defense and counter-air defense systems,” Putin claimed in 2018. But Western analysts have remained skeptical, calling the missiles, modified versions of existing conventional munitions, “new wine in old bottles.”
Nevertheless, China and the United States are racing to develop and deploy hypersonic missiles, and numerous other countries are experimenting with the technology.
The powerful explosion that officials said was the destruction of the Kinzhal missile above central Kyiv rattled windows and jolted people out of bed. Fragments from the explosion littered the streets not far from the government quarter in the heart of the city and were collected by teams of forensic experts.
Oleshchuk said the military waited to report the destruction of the hypersonic missile to protect operational security. He urged the public not to share information about air defenses as they work to counter Russian missiles and drones.
“We will definitely report what, where, with what, and when it was shot down,” he said. “All in its own time.”
The Patriot air defense system can fire three types of missiles called interceptors, each designed to destroy threats including warplanes, helicopters, cruise missiles, drones, and even ballistic missiles. One, called PAC-3, can knock down enemy planes at a range of about 40 miles, and ballistic missiles at about 20 miles.
According to a classified document from the batch a Massachusetts
‘Hitting a Russian Kinzhal with a Patriot missile would be tough but not impossible.’
IAN WILLIAMS, deputy director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
airman is accused of leaking, the United States is sending the PAC-3 version to Ukraine. Germany and the Netherlands have teamed up to send a second PAC-3 version, the document indicated.
Under the right conditions, Patriot might be capable of taking down one of the fast-moving Kinzhal missiles, according to Ian Williams, deputy director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.
“Hitting a Russian Kinzhal with a Patriot missile would be tough but not impossible,” Williams said. “There are a lot of factors, such as where the Patriot is, where that Kinzhal was headed and whether or not it was maneuvering.”