Putin’s hypersonic bluster has been exposed by Ukraine’s American Patriots
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Russia’s biggest-ever air raids targeting Ukrainian cities have killed scores of Ukrainians, injured many others and traumatized potentially millions in a country that’s bracing for its third year of full-scale war.
But these same air raids were an important reminder that Russian superweapons aren’t always so super. At least, not compared to the best Western air-defenses – especially the American Patriot surface-to-air missile.
On December 29, Ukrainian air defences shot down 114 of 158 drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles the Russians launched at Ukrainian cities. During a second wave of attacks on January 2, the Ukrainians shot down 107 of 134 drones and missiles.
Most notably, Ukrainian missile batteries – Patriots, apparently – shot down 10 of 10 Kh-47M2 Kinzhal hypersonic missiles the Russians fired in the latter raid. Russian president Vladimir Putin once declared the air-launched, maneuverable Kinzhal to be “invincible.”
That was a lie. If anything, it’s one of the easier Russian munitions for the Ukrainians to defeat. And the failure of the Kinzhal has cast doubt over the whole class of hypersonic missiles – any munition that travels at least five times the speed of sound through the atmosphere while maneuvering. In 2018, Putin listed the Kinzhal as one of six Russian “super weapons”, unstoppable by any adversary. It’s clear that in at least one case, he was wrong.
Armies, navies and air forces all over the world are counting on speedy hypersonic missiles to give them a firepower advantage. But unless these pricey weapons perform better than the Kinzhal, their efforts might be misguided.
The 24-foot Kinzhal is an air-launched version of Russia’s first hypersonic missile, the ground-launched Iskander. The Russian air force launches the multi-million-dollar Kinzhals from a small force of specially-modified MiG-31 interceptors.
A Kinzhal ranges as far as 1,200 miles, which is more than a thousand miles farther than the best Ukrainian air-defenses can reach. That impressive range keeps the MiG-31 out of harm’s way, but it does nothing to protect the Kinzhal itself in the final minutes of its flight.
As a Kinzhal approaches within a hundred miles of its target – usually some Ukrainian city – it’s fair game for Ukraine’s Patriot PAC-2 and PAC-3 surface-to-air missiles. Ukrainian Patriots have been swatting down Kinzhals since at least May. But their greatest success came on January 2, when they shot down every Kinzhal in the sky.
Observers have scrutinized videos of the attacks to understand the Kinzhal’s disappointing performance. Disappointing to the Kremlin, that is.
A Ukrainian captured the final seconds of a Kinzhal’s flight on January 2 and helpfully uploaded the video to social media. Because we know how long a Kinzhal is, it’s a straightforward exercise to measure the missile’s speed as it plummeted to the ground. It seems the vaunted missile traveled no faster than Mach 1.9.
The implications are important. While a Kinzhal might speed along at Mach 5 or faster during the most efficient, high-altitude phase of its flight – right after launch – it slows down a lot as it descends and nears its target. As it gets lower and slower, it’s easy pickings for Patriot batteries.
And it’s going to get even easier for air defences to target Kinzhal and similar missiles. Each engagement is a learning opportunity, after all. “Every Ukrainian downing of Russian hypersonic Kh-47M2 Kinzhal with the Patriot missiles will improve the Patriot missile-intercept algorithm,” explained Jan Kallberg, a missile expert with the Center for European Policy Analysis.
This not only improves Ukrainian Patriot batteries, it also benefits Patriots belonging to allied countries. “Data quality is high because it is live-tested,” Kallberg added. “It is not a desk job or theoretical calculation; this is data from a successful intercept.”
In that sense, every Patriot battery or missile reload that Ukraine’s allies donate to the war effort is an investment in their own defenses against hypersonic missiles – and not just Kinzhals. The more Kinzhals the Patriots shoot down over Ukraine, the better the American-made missiles get at intercepting all kinds of hypersonic missiles.
Even Chinese ones. Taiwan, take note.
It remains to be seen whether that argument will sway fickle Western politicians, however. Pro-Russia Republicans in the US Congress have, for months, refused to vote on $61 billion in fresh US military aid to Ukraine – aid that could pay for a lot of Patriot components and reloads.
Ukraine has just three full Patriot batteries, each of which has radars and several launchers. That’s enough to protect just three cities: presumably Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odesa. Ukraine needs additional Patriot batteries, and many more missiles to keep them in action during intensive drone and missile raids.
A consortium of Nato countries including Germany, The Netherlands, Romania and Spain recently signaled its intention to order, from US maker Raytheon, a fresh batch of 1,000 Patriot missiles. The nearly $6-billion order will support a new production line for the missiles in Germany.
It’s unclear whether Ukraine will benefit from this expanded production, however. If Nato is serious about defeating Russia, some of those missiles should go to Ukraine, where air-defenders are fighting a winning battle against Russia’s “invincible” hypersonic missiles.
