Ukrainian anti-aircraft vehicles shot down a hypersonic Kinjal missile launched by the Russians at a target in Kyiv on Thursday at 02:40, writes Defense Express, which received images of the remains of the missile.

The Kyiv City Military Administration officially announced the attack on Kyiv this night, which noted that in addition to Shahed kamikaze drones, missiles of “probably ballistic type” also took part in the attack. were destroyed.” The warhead of the missile would have been destroyed in the air, which would have caused a strong explosion, which was reported by residents of the Ukrainian capital on the night from Wednesday to Thursday.

Something has changed, and the Ukrainians can now shoot down hypersonic missiles

The X47M2 Kinjal is a weapon they are very proud of, saying it has a range of up to 3,000 kilometers and can reach speeds of up to Mach 12. Also, representatives of the Russian army say that it is “unstoppable”.

These missiles can be launched from Tu-22M3 bombers or MiG-31K interceptors and entered service in 2017 when Vladimir Putin declared them an “invincible” weapon.

In fact, there have been several cases of air alert activation in Ukraine, when MiG-31K takeoffs from Russian or Belarusian airports were detected.

Such launches are rare, the most recent being on March 9 as part of a massive Russian attack that included six Daggers. At the time, Zelenskyi’s aide said that Ukrainian air defense systems “do not cope well enough” with Russian hypersonic missiles.

Since then, something has changed, namely what Ukraine received in April the first American Patriot anti-aircraft complex with PAC-3 type interceptors. It should also be noted that the Romanian army has Patriot anti-aircraft systems with the same types of PAC-3 interceptors.

Photos of the remnants of the Kinjal missile

And the quoted publication Defense Express suggests that this is how the Russian Kinzhal missile could have been shot down on Thursday, and also publishes an image of its remains, which would have fallen on the lawn of the stadium in Kyiv.

According to the authoritative Ukraine Defense Tracker Twitter account, “the remains correspond to the unitary warhead used on the Kh-47M2 and Iskander series missiles.”

“Additional images are needed to fully confirm the type of missile, but both the Iskander and Kinjal are ballistic missiles that are considered extremely difficult to intercept, except for modern Western air defense systems that are in service in Ukraine,” the quoted added. source.

The Ukrainian military does not officially comment on this information.

Ukrainian journalist This was stated by Oleksiy Yarmolenko The BBC did not want to publicize the success, so that the Russians would not find out about it.

Yarmolenko says that the servicemen who shot down the missile unofficially confirmed this information, and representatives of the Ukrainian Air Force are “very outraged by this, and their spokesman refuses to make any statements today.”