Patriot missile base in Kiev destroyed by hypersonic strike,According to the Defense Ministry in Moscow, a Patriot air defense system in Kiev was destroyed by a precise strike carried out by a hypersonic Kinzhal missile from Russia. Previously, the Ukrainian government had asserted that the US-manufactured weapons platform had successfully intercepted the Kinzhal missiles.
No further details regarding the strike were provided by the Russian military. This marks the first instance where Moscow has claimed to have targeted the long-range system supplied to Ukraine by its Western supporters.
Kiev stated that it successfully defended against a large-scale missile attack conducted by Russian forces on Monday night. The Ukrainian military asserted that they intercepted six Kinzhal missiles, along with several other airborne targets.
The Russian ministry confirmed the attack in a daily briefing on Tuesday, 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 several barrages 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.
