What is the cause?
Russia’s defense ministry released a video on Saturday morning declaring that the country had fired a new type of advanced missile, a hypersonic Kinzhal missile, at a missile depot in western Ukraine, not far from the Romanian border. On Sunday, the ministry reported a second Kinzhal attack, this time on a fuel depot north of Odessa. It would be the first time the new weapon has been used on the battlefield.
What is it based on?
Kinzjal (‘dagger’) is a new type of missile fired from under the fighter-bomber Mig-31. Hypersonic weapons or hypersonic gliders (which is usually meant by that) are the subject of an arms race in which Russia and China are leading the way. They have flight characteristics that make them difficult for missile defense systems to intercept.
Unlike cruise missiles, they can reach speeds above five times the speed of sound, more than 6,000 kilometers per hour. Ballistic missiles, such as the Iskander-M missiles often used in this war, do achieve higher speeds, but they follow a more or less predictable parabolic trajectory after the start-up phase, making them easier to intercept. Hypersonic gliders fly much lower, through the atmosphere, allowing them to steer and evade air defenses with the help of their shape and small control surfaces. In addition, due to their low orbit, they do not appear above the radar horizon until much later, so there is much less time to react.
In a 2018 speech, Russian President Putin announced Kinzhal, along with five other advanced new weapon systems, such as the hypersonic glider Avangard, which could reach 25 times the speed of sound.
Kinzhal is said to have a range of 2,000 kilometers and can be loaded with conventional explosives or nuclear weapons. The weapon was put into service by the Russian armed forces, but had not yet been deployed.
And, is it right?
The question is whether Kinzhal is really a new type of hypersonic missile. Several weapons experts noted that Russian demonstration photos of a Kinzhal under a Mig-31 look suspiciously like an Iskander-M ballistic missile, without the shape or control surfaces that give the maneuverability of a hypersonic glider.
The Iskander rocket also has some maneuverability and can be launched at a relatively low orbit. Shooting from under an aircraft expands the possible runway profiles. “It’s just an Iskander being dropped from under a plane. Calm down,” wrote US arms control expert Jeffrey Lewis of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) in California.
In addition, the question is what the military usefulness is of deploying such a hypersonic weapon, of which Russia only has a few in stock. Russia has now fired more than 1,000 Iskander ballistic missiles and Kalibr cruise missiles at Ukraine. Only cruise missiles are occasionally intercepted by the Ukrainian air defense.
The American website The War Zone also showed with the help of satellite images that the video from the Russian ministry does not show a weapons depot in western Ukraine, but a previously bombed farm in eastern Ukraine.
This gives the impression that the claimed use of the Kinzhal missile, according to Russia close to NATO borders, mainly serves to flex its muscles and send out a signal: watch out, we are going to pull out all the stops.
Conclusion
Kinzjal probably isn’t the agile hypersonic glider that has been the subject of much excitement among weapons experts. The deployment on the battlefield does not seem to fit with the provided video material and does not serve a military purpose that Russia cannot also achieve with ‘normal’ ballistic missiles.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of March 21, 2022