Global Courant 2023-05-17 03:08:43
Ukraine claims to have achieved a rare feat in warfare: shooting down advanced Russian hypersonic Kinzhal missiles.
The Russian air force fired six Kh-47M2 Kinzhals at targets in Kiev, Ukraine’s capital, early Tuesday, a weapon it has used sparingly since the early months of its invasion of its neighbor in February 2022.
Ukraine has not said whether the US-supplied Patriot missiles were used to thwart some or all attempted attacks, but it happened 10 days after the army said it downed another Kinzhal over Kiev using a Patriot missile defense system . The Pentagon also credited the Patriot system for thwarting the May 6 strike.
If a Patriot missile was able to intercept a Kinzhal, experts say that is an important development in air defense.
Here’s a look at what makes the Kinzhal different from other missiles Russia is using against Ukraine and why it’s so important to blow it out of the sky before it hits.
LOOK | A barrage of missiles in the night sky over Kiev:
Flashes over Kiev as Russian missiles target the city
Russia attacked Ukraine’s capital with a barrage of missiles on Tuesday morning, sparking a defensive effort by Ukrainian troops as air-raid sirens rang through the city.
How is the Kinzhal different from other missiles?
The Kinzhal, meaning “dagger” in Russian, is an air-launched ballistic missile.
When Russian President Vladimir Putin unveiled the weapons in 2018, he said they could penetrate both existing and future missile defense systems.
The Kinzhal is the cousin of the 9K720 Iskander-M – a short-range, ground-launched ballistic missile used by Russia somewhat frequent throughout the war.
It’s called a hypersonic missile, meaning it travels at least five times faster than the speed of sound. Russia claims the Kinzhal can reach Mach 10 – that’s 10 times the speed of sound, or 12,350 km/h – within a range of 2,000 kilometers.
Russia is using a modified MiG-31 fighter jet to launch the eight-meter missile from the air, something that helps increase its speed, said Sidharth Kaushal, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a defense and security think tank. in London.
But he called the hypersonic description of Russia a “bit of deliberate deception”.
“It flies at hypersonic speeds, but what we usually mean when we use the term is something that is highly maneuverable at hypersonic speed,” he said.
Tom Karako, a senior fellow and director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C., agrees that Russia’s claims of the Kinzhal’s hypersonic maneuverability may be exaggerated by comparison. with that of weapons commonly referred to as hypersonic, such as a cruise or a boost glide missile.
“(It) may or may not have been at hypersonic speeds, but it is nevertheless an advanced and challenging interception problem,” he said.
Russian MiG-31 supersonic interceptor jets with Kinzhal hypersonic missiles fly over Red Square during the Victory Day military parade in Moscow on May 9, 2018, as Russia celebrated the 73rd anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. (Yuri Kadomnov/AFP/Getty Images)
Why is it so hard to shoot?
First of all, it is difficult to intercept because of the altitude at which it flies, which is between 30 and 40 kilometers above the ground, Kaushal said, meaning it is above the range of many lower air defense interceptors, but also below that of ballistic missile defense. systems that operate at much higher altitudes, such as the US THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) system.
“So they can’t necessarily intercept the missile mid-course, but it can do that as it descends toward its target,” he said.
But the difficulty does not end there.
When the Kinzhal is in the terminal phase and rapidly descends toward a target, it releases six decoys that “mimicate the radar signature of the warhead itself,” Kaushal said.
“If a ground-based air defense system fires interceptors, it can basically eliminate decoys rather than the warhead they’re actually targeting,” he said.
Is this a success story?
While Russia has used dozens of its small supply of Kinzhals over the course of the war, the May 6 interception — and possibly Tuesday’s — marks the first time Ukraine has been able to destroy this type of missile.
It would be “a testament to the system’s capabilities” if a Patriot missile system could intercept Kinzhal missiles, CSIS’s Karako said, adding that they “appear to have arrived just in time.”
The United States, together with Germany and the Netherlands, donated Patriot missile defense systems that arrived in Ukraine last month.
US Patriot surface-to-air missile defense system launch modules, mounted on trucks, are pictured in Zamosc, Poland, on Feb. 18. The United States, along with Germany and the Netherlands, donated Patriot missile defense systems that arrived in Ukraine in April. (Omar Marques/Getty Images)
Karako said he doesn’t think it will necessarily change the course of the conflict for the Ukrainians, but it could “dissuade them from taking bigger strategic hits”.
But the potential success of the interceptions may also come at a cost. Russia claims that one of the six Kinzhals fired at night failed to be intercepted and hit a Patriot system in Kiev, which the Russian military said was the target.
According to CNNthe United States Department of Defense assesses whether a Patriot system was damaged in the attack.
As for Russia, both Karako and Kaushal point out that Russian supply of Kinzhals is limited and it is not easy to replace them.
Kaushal said there were already a number of restrictions in place before the war that limited Russian missile production — including a major component manufacturer that went out of business — but export controls also hinder the ability to acquire parts to make both Kinzhal and Iskander missiles , which are also exhausted. in the course of the war.
“Whatever it was they thought they were targeting was worth the outlay on a high-performance missile,” he said.
LOOK | Zelenskyy acquires more weapons to fight Russia:
Zelensky secures more military hardware for Ukraine
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has completed a whirlwind tour of Europe, securing more military aid ahead of an expected spring counter-offensive. Britain has promised to help create a Western ‘jet coalition’ but has ruled out sending one of its own.
