Massive Strikes on Kiev
Read Time:2 Minute, 45 Second
Russia Aerospace Forces and Navy carry out massive precision strikes on the Ukrainian capital destroying a $1 billion Patriot air defence battery
Russia conducted an “integrated attack” on targets in Kiev in the early hours of Tuesday that was “exceptional in its density,” a Ukrainian military official has said.
The bombardment involved drones, cruise missiles and possibly ballistic missiles, the head of Kiev’s military administration, Sergey Popko, wrote on Telegram.
“The maximum number of attacking missiles was launched in the shortest period of time,” he said.
Popko claimed the “majority of enemy targets in the airspace of Kiev were detected and destroyed.”
The Telegram channel of the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, General Valery Zaluzhny, later claimed that a total of 18 missiles were launched at the capital overnight, of which all were destroyed by Kiev’s air defenses. Those included six Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, nine Kalibr cruise missiles and three ground-launched Iskander ballistic missiles, the statement said.
The Kinzhal (Dagger) is a Russian hypersonic air-to-surface missile that has been in operation since 2017. It can travel at a speed of up to Mach 12 (around 14,800kph), while constantly performing evasive manoeuvres, which is believed to allow it to penetrate any existing air defences.
The Russian Defense Ministry in Moscow reported on Tuesday, a precision strike by a Russian hypersonic Kinzhal missile has destroyed a Patriot air defense system in Kiev. The Patriot system costs $1 billion apiece with its missiles costing $1 million each.
Russian military did not provide further details about the strike, which was the first time Moscow claimed to have hit the long-range system supplied to Ukraine by its Western backers, stating that it had used long-range precision weapons to hit military targets, including “Ukrainian troops positions and places of storage of munitions, weapons and military hardware delivered from Western nations.”
A video circulating on social media purports to show a Patriot battery deployed in the Ukrainian capital firing a barrage of missiles at incoming Russian targets. Seconds later, a large explosion can be seen in the area.
The Ukrainian government claimed last week that it had used a Patriot system to achieve the first-ever downing of a Kinzhal missile. The projectile is a hypersonic weapon whose speed makes it practically impossible to be intercepted.
Speaking to Russian media, anonymous sources in the Russian Defense Ministry dismissed the Ukrainian claim as “wishful thinking.” Some outlets suggested that Kiev had misidentified debris from a slower ballistic Iskander missile, which is a ground-launched weapon that shares some design features with the air-launched Kinzhal.
Moscow began its large-scale missile campaign in Ukraine in October last year after accusing Kiev of using “terrorist tactics” and targeting Russian infrastructure, including the strategic Crimean Bridge.
Since then, numerous large-scale missile bombardments, involving various types of projectiles and kamikaze drones, have been carried out against Ukrainian military installations and energy facilities, leading to rolling blackouts and a depletion of the country’s air-defense capabilities.
The strikes across Ukraine resumed in early May after an almost two-month pause. According to Popko, this was the eighth major missile and drone attack on targets in Kiev since the beginning of the month.
Source Telegram/RuMOD/RT/TASS
Happy
0 %
Sad
0 %
Excited
0 %
Sleepy
0 %
Angry
0 %
Surprise
0 %
0
0
Average Rating