Ukraine claims major success against Russian superweapon

Ukraine said on Tuesday it had shot down six Russian hypersonic Kinzhal missiles overnight, thwarting a superweapon Moscow had previously touted as all but unstoppable.

It is the first time Ukraine claimed to have struck an entire volley of multiple hypersonic missiles, and if confirmed would demonstrate the effectiveness of newly deployed Western-supplied air defences.

The six Kinzhals, ballistic missiles which travel at up to 10 times the speed of sound, were among a volley of 18 missiles Russia launched at Ukraine overnight, lighting up Kyiv with flashes and raining debris after they were blasted from the sky.

Valeriy Zaluzhnyi , the commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, said all had been successfully intercepted. There was no immediate comment from Russia.

Authorities in the Ukrainian capital said three people were wounded by falling debris.

“It was exceptional in its density — the maximum number of attack missiles in the shortest period of time,” Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv’s city military administration, said on Telegram.

Zaluzhnyi said his forces had intercepted the six Kinzhals launched from aircraft, as well as nine Kalibr cruise missiles from ships in the Black Sea and three Iskanders fired from land.

Earlier this month, Ukraine claimed to have shot down a single Kinzhal missile over Kyiv for the first time, using a newly deployed US Patriot air defence system.

Previously, the ability of Patriots to intercept Kinzhal missiles was only theoretical. Hitting six at once would suggest it could be a reliable defence, rather than a lucky shot.

President Vladimir Putin, who unveiled the Kinzhal as one of six “next generation” weapons in 2018, has frequently touted it as proof of world-beating Russian military hardware, capable of taking on Nato.

The Kinzhal, Russian for “dagger”, can carry conventional or nuclear warheads up to 2,000km. Russia used them in warfare for the first time in Ukraine last year and has acknowledged firing them on;y on a few occasions.

With Ukrainian forces preparing an offensive for the first time in six months, Russia is launching long-range air strikes at the highest frequency of the war.

It has fired eight drone and missile volleys so far this month, compared with weekly during the winter and a lull in March and April. Kyiv says it has been shooting most down.

‘Under control’

Air-raid sirens blared across nearly all of Ukraine early on Tuesday and were heard over Kyiv and its region for more than three hours.

“The enemy’s mission is to sow panic and create chaos. However, in the northern operational zone (including Kyiv), everything is under complete control,” said Gen Serhiy Naev, Commander of the Joint Forces of the Armed Forces.

The past week has seen Ukraine make its biggest gains on the battlefield since last November, recapturing several square kilometres of territory on the northern and southern outskirts of the battlefield city of Bakhmut. Moscow has acknowledged that some of its troops have retreated but denies that its battle lines are crumbling on the city’s flanks.

Kyiv says those advances are localised and do not yet represent the full force of its upcoming counter-offensive, planned to take advantage of hundreds of modern tanks and armoured vehicles sent by the West this year.

A Ukrainian counteroffensive would bring the next major phase of the war, after a huge Russian winter offensive that failed to capture significant new territory despite the bloodiest ground combat in Europe since World War 2.

Reuters