'Invulnerable'? Patriot system squashes Kremlin's hypersonic missile claims

Ukraine's recent announcement that it had downed a Russian hypersonic Kinzhal missile using a US-made Patriot system is yet another indictment of the Kremlin's over-touted military capabilities.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who unveiled the Kinzhal missile in 2018, termed it "invulnerable" to anti-missile systems.

"I congratulate the Ukrainian people on the historic event," Ukrainian Gen. Mykola Oleshchuk said on Telegram. "Yes, we shot down the 'unparallelled' Kinzhal" missile.

The Ukrainian air force said May 6 the missile was shot down with a Patriot air-defence system in skies over Kyiv at about 2.30am last Thursday.

Ukraine appealed to its Western allies to help reinforce its air defence system as Russia pounded Ukrainian energy infrastructure from the air over the winter.

In mid-April, Ukraine received the first Patriots, seen as one of the most advanced US air defence systems.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the system would "significantly" strengthen Ukraine's defences against Russian strikes.

Russia used its first Kinzhal missile in March 2022 at the beginning of its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

The Patriot

The destruction of the Kh-47 Kinzhal missile, fired by a Russian MiG-31K fighter jet, demonstrated the potentially game-changing role of the Patriot system, which costs roughly $1 billion per installation, according to the Washington Post.

The MIM-104 Patriot, the US Army's primary air and missile defence system, is used by a handful of US allies around the world.

The Patriot missile defence system consists of six major components: a missile, launcher, radar set, control station, power generator unit and high-frequency antenna mast.

The PAC-3 (MIM-104F) upgrade of the Patriot system, initially fielded in 2001, significantly increased Patriot capabilities with upgraded missiles and use of the Link 16 communications system.

A modified Patriot launcher can fire 16 missiles and target eight inbound ballistic missiles, using the two-shot method that aims to guarantee destruction of the target.

A Patriot battery of six launchers can defeat 48 ballistic missiles.

The even more advanced PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (PAC-3 MSE), fielded in 2015, features larger, dual pulse solid rocket motors; larger fins; and upgraded actuators and thermal batteries to achieve greater speeds and manoeuvrability for defeating more-advanced ballistic and cruise missiles.

Aided by other improvements to guidance, structure and software, the PAC-3 MSE can defend a significantly larger area than its predecessors could.

Embarrassments pile up

Putin has long boasted about his country's new generation of "invincible" weapons.

In 2018, Putin claimed Russia had built a new hypersonic missile system, the Avangard hypersonic vehicle, that can fly at 20 times the speed of sound and manoeuvre up and down.

"This makes it absolutely invincible for any forms of air and missile defence," he said during that year's state of the nation address, calling it an "ideal weapon".

The downing of an "invincible" weapon is just the latest embarrassment of the Russian military.

Over the past few months, Russia has been bogged down in a fight to control the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, a once unthinkable situation as Russia's much larger military faces its smaller neighbour.

Estimates suggest more than 20,000 Russian troops have died and another 80,000 have been wounded in the past five months of fighting in Ukraine.

Russia's allegedly vaunted naval prowess is also being seriously questioned after more than a year of embarrassing losses in Ukraine, and as Moscow appears unable to execute its own naval doctrine and suffers from corruption.

Within the first few months of Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine, the Russian navy suffered two high-profile losses of warships.

On April 14, 2022, Ukrainian missiles sank the missile cruiser Moskva, the flagship of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, about 110km from Odesa.

Three weeks earlier, on March 24, 2022, a Ukrainian missile sank the Saratov, an Alligator-class tank landing ship (LST), in Berdyansk, Ukraine.

Russia's forces have long suffered from a culture of kleptocracy that diverts research and rearmament funds to officials and businessmen's bank accounts.

Russia's only aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, has caught fire a number of times over the years, the latest in 2022, and suffered serious damage in October 2018 when a crane crashed onto its deck.

The general director of the shipyard in Murmansk that was repairing the Admiral Kuznetsov was arrested in connection with charges of embezzling funds, TASS reported in March 2021.