The Air Force of Ukraine admitted that on Thursday morning shot down a Russian Kinzhal hypersonic missile from the Patriot system.

The confirmation came after BBC spokesman Yuriy Ignat sharply rejected press reports on the subject on Friday: “I have told you a thousand times that this is not the case (…) No missiles were recorded. ballistic”.

However, on Saturday, the Telegram account of the BBC acknowledged the veracity of the information: “Congratulations to the Ukrainian people on a historic event! Yes, I shot the “incomparable” Kinzhal (Russian Kinzhal)!”

“It happened during the night shelling on May 4 in the sky of the Kyiv region. The Kh-47 missile was launched from Russian territory by a MiG-31K,” the source said, also referring to “information that the enemy can use” — a possible explanation for the previous official position.

Air Force of Ukraine: “The reasons are completely clear!”

“Once again, we emphasize that the military leadership decided not to make public information about the downing of the X-47 Kinjal missile by the Patriot system. The reasons are quite clear. Everything has its time! Thanks for understanding! Together to victory!”, the BBC added.

We will remind, on Friday Defense Express wrote that Ukrainian anti-aircraft equipment shot down a Kinjal hypersonic missile launched by the Russians at a target in Kyiv on Thursday.

Experts in the field have said that published images of debris falling in Kyiv belong to a Russian hypersonic missile.

They probably didn’t want the Russians to find out about the downing of the Kinjal missile.

However, officials in Kyiv denied the information on Friday, and a 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 noted that the servicemen who shot down the missile unofficially confirmed yesterday’s information, and that representatives of the Ukrainian Air Force were “very outraged” by this information.

Perhaps the Ukrainian military leadership wanted to hide the information – otherwise this is a really important achievement – so that the Russians knew as little as possible about the anti-aircraft capabilities and location of the Patriot system with interceptors PAC-3 type received from the Americans.

This achievement is all the more impressive as the Russians claim the X47M2 Kinjal is an “unstoppable” missile, and Vladimir Putin has even declared it an “invincible” weapon.