Six keys to the Kinzhal hypersonic missiles used by Russia in its massive attack on civilians in Ukraine

This week’s massive new Russian attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine had a distinctive feature: the use of six hypersonic Kinzhals (“daggers”) missiles, the most Russia has used in a single attack since it began its invasion of Ukraine over a year ago.

The novelty produced a series of questions that international and military specialists of The New York Times John Ismay, Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Andrew Kramer have tried to answer clearly and simply with the information available so far.

“Hypersonic missiles are long-range, highly maneuverable projectiles capable of reaching speeds of at least Mach 5, five times the speed of sound, or more than one and a half kilometers per second,” they explained. And they add that “this speed renders traditional air defense systems virtually useless, because when detected by ground radars, they are almost on target. China and the United States are competing to develop and deploy hypersonic missiles. Other countries are also working on this technology: Germany, Australia, Brazil, North Korea, South Korea, France, India, Iran, Israel and Japan”.

Kiev, Kirovohrad, Dnipro, Odessa, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia were the targets of 81 missiles launched by Moscow early Thursday morning. Six of them were hypersonic.

“The Kinzhal is a modified version of the short-range ballistic missile Iskander of the Russian Army, designed to be fired from ground-based truck-mounted launchers. Launching the missile from a fighter plane at high altitude, rather than from the ground, leaves you with more fuel that you can use to reach higher speeds.

In addition to its ability to reach hypersonic speeds when airdropping, the Kinzhal is believed to behave like a ground-launched Iskander, meaning it is capable of maneuvering to make it difficult to intercept. Some Iskanders can also drop decoys before impact, designed to further confuse air defense radars.

The conventionally armed Iskanders are believed to be carrying around 1,500 kilos of explosives.

Russia originally developed the Kinzhal to disrupt US missile defense systems and claims it achieves speeds of Mach 10 and above. The Pentagon claimed it was launched by MiG-31 warplanes.

Moscow first said it deployed the Kinzhal in Ukraine nearly a year ago in an attack on an underground weapons depot, and has since regularly claimed responsibility for its use.

There is another hypersonic missile that Russia claims to have in its arsenal: the Zircon, a cruise missile that can be launched from ships. However, Russia has not reported conducting launch tests of the Zircon during exercises announced by President Vladimir V. Putin in January, and it is not known that it was ever used in combat.

Specialists quoted Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, who admitted that “Ukraine does not have weapons capable of shooting down the Kinzhals”.

Thanks to Kinzhalks and a higher proportion of ballistic missiles and a lower proportion of cruise missiles, Thursday’s attacks hit their targets at a higher rate than usual. As reported by Ukraine, 47 out of 81 missiles hit their targets.

“The coordinates of the target are loaded into the missile’s operating system before launch, and due to the enormous speed it reaches in flight, any small deviation – for example, a wing control surface will moving too much or too little – can result in significant target variation,” explains the note from The New York Times. This could explain why one of the missiles hit a car in kyiv, instead of a target of greater military importance.

Ukraine’s military intelligence agency estimated that Russia had, before Thursday’s attacks, no more than 50 Kinzhals. Thus, in a single attack, he would have used more than 10% of his arsenal.

“For some reason they needed a result” this time, the Ukrainian Air Force spokesman said.

“But it’s possible that Russia will be able to replenish the Kinzhals relatively easily,” the NYT scholars said. “Since the Kinzhal is simply a modified version of an existing missile, it might be easier to produce than, say, creating more Zircons, which have to be built from scratch.”

Not necessarily, although Russia can produce more Kinzhals relatively quickly. Despite the passage of more Russian missiles than usual on Thursday, an air war alone will not be decisive.

In comparison, Russia causes far more destruction with the thousands of artillery shells it fires into Ukraine.

And the ground war remains at an impasse. Many analysts say Russia’s long-awaited spring offensive is already underway, but is having little impact because its troops and arsenals are so depleted.

© The New York Times 2023

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