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The Ukrainian military shot down the Russian “Kinzhal” aeroballistic missile on May 4, 2023, but official confirmation of this news appeared only after the Armed Forces of Ukraine monitored the reaction of the Russian leadership to the incident. Yuriy Ignat, speaker of the Air Force Command of Ukraine, spoke about this on the air of the FREEDOM TV channel.
“They call it a superweapon that cannot be destroyed. Today we see that it is possible,” said Yuri Ignat.
He added that the Patriot air defense system was used to shoot down the “Kinzhal”, but the SAMP / T “Sumpty” air defense system, which will also be in Ukraine, will be able to do this no less effectively.
Ignat stressed that “Kinzhal” is an aeroballistic missile that takes no time to rise into the air and is launched from an aircraft at high speed. According to him, it is heavy and requires certain means to bring it down.
“Unfortunately, “Kinzhal” is a high-precision weapon, they have launched it about 20 times already on our territory,” Yuri Ignat said.
According to him, the Russians still have the opportunity to produce such missiles, but the production rate cannot be high.
“And not only sanctions affect this process, but still the manufacturability of production. They need time to manufacture everything that they have released through our infrastructure in the fall and winter. According to the official data of the GUR, we are talking about fifty “Kinzhal”, Ignat said.
He also stressed that the countries that provide Ukraine with weapons not only help it, but also see how effectively it works in real combat conditions.
“Indeed, this is a historic event. Not a single army in the world has such experience in conducting combat operations with the use of such weapons that fly at us from all sides. Therefore, the world is certainly looking at us. The countries that provide us with weapons, in addition to helping Ukraine, still see how effectively it works,” the expert said.
Recall that the military administration of Kyiv reported on May 4 that as a result of a night attack on the capital, about 10 fragments of downed targets of Russian invaders fell in three districts, and also that air defense “preliminarily shot down ballistic targets.” On May 5, the military-analytical publication Defense Express suggested that the Ukrainian air defense for the first time was able to shoot down an X-47 “Kinzhal” missile over Kiev on the night of May 4. This conclusion was made on the basis of the analysis of photographs of the wreckage of the rocket, available to the DE editors.
