All six Russian Kh-47 Kinzhal hypersonic missiles flying to Kiev on the night of May 16 were destroyed by the Ukrainian air defense, said Yury Ignat, a representative of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, during the telethon, broadcast by the TSN channel on YouTube .
According to him, the missiles were fired from six MiG-31K aircraft. Ignat clarified that now Kyiv remains at the epicenter, the capital is always under attack from Russian troops, so it is protected by "serious means."
On May 4, the Armed Forces of Ukraine for the first time reported that they shot down a Russian "Dagger" in the sky over the Kyiv region. Commander of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Nikolai Oleshchuk said that the MiG-31K missile was also fired from the territory of Russia. Later, Pentagon spokesman Patrick Ryder confirmed the information, specifying that the UAF shot down the "Dagger" with the help of the American Patriot air defense system. The Russian department did not report the launch of a hypersonic missile. On May 13, the propaganda publication Izvestia, citing sources in the Russian Ministry of Defense, reported that for the entire period of Ukrainian air defense, it had not been able to intercept a single Kinzhal missile. The fragments presented by Kiev are the remains of other missiles. Propaganda military expert Dmitry Kornev suggested that these are fragments of the 9M723 missile of the Iskander-M complex, which are similar in design to the Daggers.
Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke about the presence of the Russian Federation "Daggers" in a message to the Federal Assembly back in 2018. He claimed that the "Dagger" would be able to deliver nuclear and conventional warheads to a target located at a distance of up to 2,000 km. In 2022, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu stated that the "Dagger" was used during the "special operation" in Ukraine three times and showed "brilliant performance." Separately, the minister noted that the missile has no analogues in the world, it cannot be "neither detected nor intercepted."