The Russian hypersonic missile Kinzhal was considered indestructible, but the Armed Forces of Ukraine managed it.
There are no analogues, they say. A hypersonic weapon that no one and nothing can bring down, the Russians said about the Kinzhal missile. But the main pride of the Russian defense industry could not withstand the meeting with the American Patriot complex, under the control of the Ukrainian military.
What is a rocket?
Dagger is an aeroballistic missile that can accelerate to Mach 10. This indicator is difficult to convert to kilometers per hour, because the Mach number is a conditional value, it shows the speed of an object relative to the speed of sound in a certain environment, and therefore will be different at different heights. This rocket can be said to be approx can fly at a speed of more than 14,000 kilometers per hour.
This leaves very little time for air defense calculations to react. The Dagger’s maximum range is believed to be two thousand kilometers. Even taking into account the fact that the rocket will gain speed at several stages, and somewhere it will lose it due to air resistance, it will still take no more than 10 minutes to fly such a distance at a speed of 14 thousand kilometers every hour. If you run it at a closer distance, even less.
The dagger is usually launched from a special aircraft – the MiG-31K. This is a high-altitude interceptor, created in the days of the USSR, specially modernized to carry such, first of all, heavy weapons.
This aircraft acts as the first stage of a rocket – it rises to a height of up to 15 kilometers and accelerates to supersonic speed, after which it launches a rocket, which then rises even higher – up to 20 kilometers, accelerating to hypersonic speeds.
It is believed that the Dagger is capable of maneuvering at hypersonic speeds. Such maneuvers are designed to make interception more difficult, since an anti-aircraft missile must maneuver with more overload than its target, and in the case of a hypersonic interception object, it is almost impossible.
How were they shot?
The information that the Armed Forces of Ukraine shot Dagger first appeared in the media and among authoritative experts. European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) military expert Gustav Gressel wrote that on March 4, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, with the help of the American Patriot air defense system, intercepted a Russian hypersonic Kinzhal missile over the Kiev, which is considered. indestructible. The same information was published by the Ukrainian edition of Defense Express, along with photos of the destruction of a rocket that fell on one of Kyiv’s stadiums, obtained from several sources.
After that, the information was confirmed by the commander of the air force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Lieutenant General Nikolai Oleshchuk.
“I congratulate the Ukrainian people on a historic event! Yes, we shot down an ‘incomparable’ Kinzhal! It happened during a night attack on May 4 in the sky of the Kiev region. A MiG-31K missile fired by a MiG-31K from Russian territory,” he said.
According to the general, it is possible to destroy the missile with the help of the American Patriot air defense system.
Currently, such complexes use two types of missiles – PAC 2 and PAC 3.
PAC 2 is a more distant missile that can intercept air targets at a height of up to 25 kilometers and at a distance of up to 160. PAC 3 is not so far – the radius is only 40 kilometers, and the height is 20. However, the more modern PAC 3 is adapted to combat ballistic missiles.
What kind of missiles were delivered to Ukraine is not officially reported. The New York Times, citing documents from a recent leak, reports that Kyiv received the exact latest version of the missiles – PAC 3.
Reaction
On Monday, Yuriy Ignat, spokesman for the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, explained why Ukraine initially denied that it had shot down a Russian Dagger over Kiev.
“We did not plan to immediately inform the society and the enemy that the Dagger was shot … Let them think, let them find where their Dagger went. This decision was made by the highest leadership,” said by Ignat. According to him, they decided to confirm the news only after it appeared in other sources.
The announcement of the Ukraine blockade caused chaos at the Pentagon last week,
a source told CNN. The US sees it as a significant development as Putin publicly touts the capabilities of Russian weapons he calls hypersonic, saying they can overcome all existing air defense systems. In addition, until last week in Russia they were convinced that if they used a missile like Kinzhal, then everything it fired would definitely hit. It turns out not to be so.
The fact that this interception was carried out by a Ukrainian crew trained in Oklahoma but without American advisers on the battlefield is more than pleasing to the Pentagon, notes CNN.
They call it a huge “return on investment.” But in Russia, the shooting down of Ukrainian air defense forces in Kinzhal has raised serious uncertainty about whether Ukraine has a sustainable means of countering hypersonic ballistic missiles.
According to Ukrainian intelligence, Russia has only a few dozen Kinzhal missiles in its arsenal. Some of these were launched against Ukrainian targets in March. There is no data on how much damage they caused and whether they achieved all their goals.
Russia usually reports the use of such missiles immediately. Launches of such modern high-tech weapons are actively used by Russian propaganda, which advertises its superiority and incompetence over the weapons of other countries.
However, this time the Russian military department did not issue a statement – neither confirming the fact of the launch, nor denying that the missile was shot down.
“Russian propaganda is trying to impose the opinion that Russian weapons are the best in the world and the only one of their kind (“no analogues”). This is a big mistake,” he said.
“Before, we did not have the opportunity to destroy such targets, but with the support of our friends, the impossible becomes possible,” summed up the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Oleksiy Reznikov.
Source: korrespondent
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.