Hypersonic assault: Ukraine's air defence struggles to keep pace

Russia once again attacked Ukrainian cities with hypersonic and cruise missiles. One of the targets was Kyiv, where the children's hospital suffered damage. We explain what the Russians might have used to strike the capital of Ukraine and why defenders still face problems with this type of weapon.

On July 8, 2024, among others, Russian missiles struck Kyiv. According to the Unian agency, citing a well-known military blogger, the Russians used dozens of rockets, including Kalibr cruise missiles and hypersonic Kh-47M2 Kinzhal missiles.

The second type is hazardous, as Ukraine currently has only a few batteries of anti-aircraft and anti-ballistic missile systems capable of intercepting such targets. Moreover, even in the case of a successful interception, the missile debris, weighing up to a few hundred kilograms, must fall somewhere, causing destruction. At least five people were killed in the Russian attack.

Ukrainian air defence is much weaker than in 2022 or even 2023, as the local stock of missiles for the post-Soviet systems has been depleted. Replenishing them is practically impossible, as missiles for many systems were produced exclusively by Russia, and their availability in the West is minimal.

The worst situation is with the medium-range S-300P and S-300V systems, for which Bulgaria provided only Slovakia, an S-300P battery, and a certain number of missiles for repair. This, however, is not enough, and the donation of several batteries of the Patriot and SAMP/T systems by Western countries has not filled the capacity gap.

It is also worth noting that Ukraine received a lot of old equipment like the S-200 Vega from Poland or the MIM-23 Hawk from the US and Spain, but their performance does not measure up to combating newer ballistic missiles. This leaves Ukraine's critical infrastructure, such as power plants, defenceless, as was evident in the attack on the Trypil TPP power plant near Kyiv.

Ballistic missiles like the Iskander-M travel along a ballistic trajectory, ascending to the upper atmosphere and descending at speeds exceeding Mach 7 (more than 2,000 metres per second). Such high speed significantly complicates their interception, and only a few anti-aircraft systems are with them.

Their quasi-evolution are hypersonic missiles, which achieve the speed of ballistic missiles while retaining the ability to maneuver during flight. This differs drastically from ballistic missiles, whose flight trajectory is predictable. The ability of a hypersonic missile to maneuver significantly reduces the chances of it being hit by classic anti-ballistic defence systems.

Many countries are trying to develop this type of weapon, and one of them is Russia, whose Kh-47M2 Kinzhal missiles seem to perform significantly below expectations. Meanwhile, the subsonic Kalibr cruise missiles used in the attack served as decoys to divert the attention of Ukrainian air defence from the more significant threat.