This morning, Russia’s Defense Ministry posted on Telegram that, before dawn, “a high-precision strike by the Kinzhal hypersonic missile system in the city of Kyiv hit a US-made Patriot anti-aircraft missile system.” Ukraine only has one other such system. Moscow provided video evidence of the Patriot system firing, and then suffering a devastating hit.
An early Kiev report, by the head of Kiev’s military administration, Sergey Popko, admitted that Russia had conducted an “integrated attack” which was “exceptional in its density.” He cited no particular damage and claimed that the “majority of enemy targets in the airspace of Kiev were detected and destroyed.”
Then Ukraine’s ‘verbal defense system’ went into full gear. Ukrinform reported the account of the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces (UAF) that their air defense forces shot down 18 out of 18 Russian missiles. “At around 3:30 in the morning on May 16, 2023, Russian invaders attacked Ukraine from the north, south, and east, launching 18 air, sea, and land-based missiles of various types. Six Kh-47M2 Kinzhal air ballistic missiles were launched from six MiG-31K aircraft, nine Kalibr cruise missiles were launched from warships in the Black Sea, and also there were three land-based missiles (S-400, Iskander-M).”
