MOSCOW, March 9. /TASS/. Ukraine’s air defenses are incapable of shooting down Russian Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, Ukrainian Air Force Command Spokesman Yury Ignat said on Thursday.
"Our air defense systems are capable of shooting down cruise missiles. Unfortunately, we deal with Kinzhal and Kh-22 missiles and we cannot fight these missiles so far because they follow a ballistic flight path and we have no capabilities against them," he said in a live broadcast on Ukraine’s Rada television channel.
The Ukrainian military command expects the arrival of American Patriot air defense systems but "they are also not a panacea" because quite a large number of these systems is needed, he added.
Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Thursday that Russian forces had delivered a massive retaliatory strike on Ukrainian infrastructure facilities in response to Kiev’s terror attacks in the Bryansk Region. As the ministry specified, the strike was delivered by precision weapons, including Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, against "key Ukrainian military infrastructure sites," defense enterprises and related energy facilities.
The Ukrainian side earlier reported a series of explosions in various regions and damage to critical infrastructure sites, including three thermal power stations.
The Kinzhal is the Russian state-of-the-art airborne system with hypersonic aero-ballistic missiles. Russian MiG-31K and MiG-31I fighter-interceptors have been chosen as the carriers of Kinzhal hypersonic missiles that feature radar stealth and high maneuverability and are designed to engage ground and naval targets.
The Kinzhal hypersonic missile can accelerate to ten times the speed of sound and strike targets at a range of over 2,000 km. The missile is capable of maneuvering along the entire flight path and breaching any air and anti-ballistic missile defenses. The missile can be outfitted with both conventional and nuclear warheads weighing 500 kg.
The Kinzhal airborne hypersonic missile systems have been on combat alert in the Russian Armed Forces since December 2017. Kinzhal hypersonic missiles underwent their baptism of fire in the special military operation in Ukraine on March 18, 2022.