Dear Readers:
We have been having a lively discussion in the comment section about the Kinzhal-Patriot duel in Kiev, and the resulting fireworks. Ukrainian blogosphere claims the Patriots won the duel and shot down all the Russian kinzhals. Russian blogosphere begs to disagree. If you want to hear the Ukrainian side, just click on CNN, Al Jazeera, Sky News, or any of that other fake news. But here is something from the Russian side, the reporter is Andrei Rezchikov. His headline reads:
How American Air Defense Lost Duel With Kinzhals In Kiev
The word kinzhal, by the way, which means a “dagger”, is not a Slavic word, it is a Turkic borrowing into Russian. (Russian has a whole boatload of Turkic borrowings, dating back through the centuries.) Compare Yakut kıncaal, etc. At some point in their history, Slavs must have encountered Turks carrying these very cool fancy knives, and decided to borrow the word. (And the knives too, probably!)
Anyhow, here is Rezchikov to tell us what really happened on the night of Monday-Tuesday, as the calendar page flipped to May 16:
The strike was carried out by a long-range, high-precision weapon based from air or sea. It struck Ukrainian units and ammo depots stocked with Western military technology. According to the Russian Minister of Defense, all targets were attained, and all the designated objects were destroyed.
In the course of these strikes, an American Patriot battery was destroyed by a Russian hypersonic Kinzhal system. In one of the videos, shot by eyewitnesses in Kiev, it is quite clearly seen, how the Kinzhal overwhelms the American Patriot.
The Kinzhal weapon is enjoying its first deployment in the course of this Special Military Operation.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has received from its allies a minimum of two Patriot systems, one from the U.S. and the other from Germany. There could possibly be more, but we only know for sure about the two.
Russian experts have been studying the results of the strike, and came to these conclusions:
In spite of any past problems and complexities of the matter, Russian Military Intelligence finally showed its effectiveness in this particular instance. It would be impossible to destroy a system such as the Patriot without accurate intelligence on its exact location. Russia is fighting against a very experienced opponent here, aided by the best consultants that NATO has to offer. But in spite of everything they have going for them, they were not able to hide the Patriot from Russian Intel.
Secondly, one should not denigrate or underestimate the Patriot itself. This is one of the best Anti-Air systems in the world, equipped with the most advance radar-detection and other technologies. It is also possible that Western operators [i.e., not Ukrainians] were operating the system on that day. And yet in spite of all this, the Russian Kinzhals, aided by their carriers, the crews of the MiG-31K’s, were able to win this duel.
The value of this victory is very high, and not just from any military or symbolic point of view. There is a rather materialistic dimension to this duel: Judging by the video, the Patriot unleashed around 30 rockets, each with a price-tag of $4-5 million dollars. The Patriot Battery itself costs around half a billion dollars. To do the math: In a single night Russian technology destroyed something like $700 million dollars worth of Ukrainian military property.
A special shout-out to those bloggers who published the eyewitness video. It is remarkable to watch how the Russian rockets travel their ballistic path in an almost perfect vertical. This is one of their signatures. The Patriot system defended itself fiercely and desperately. But in the end proved to be impotent against the Kinzhals.
This was, of course, not the first time that a Kinzhal has been used in the course of this Special Military Operation. But it is the first time it has been observed in such a clear duel type situation. Previously it has been used against fortified bunkers and command points, and that sort of thing. But to see it work against the best and most modern Western anti-air system, that was provided, with such pomp, to the Ukrainian regime. Now we see the real victor.
[Rezchikov goes on to gloat some more, and interviews a couple of experts, but I’ll end it there, we get the point!]
Awful Avalanche 
“Secondly, one should not denigrate or underestimate the Patriot itself.”
Dunno – Patriots didn’t do very well in Saudi against Yemeni missiles – themselves modernised copies of Iranian missiles which in turn were copies of 1950s Soviet missiles.
Frankly I think everyone expected that when US tech faced Russian tech it would be a big PR disaster for US. I’m actually surprised at how much coverage it has got here in West.
More evidence that the move to get Nato out of Ukraine is building.
https://thewallwillfall.org/2023/05/17/seymour-hersh-the-ukraine-refugee-question/
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His praise of the Patriot system might just be magnanimity. (Is that a word?)
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P.S. I respect Hersh, but this paragraph doesn’t make any sense to me:
This group is led by Poland, whose leadership no longer fears the Russian army because its performance in Ukraine has left the glow of its success at Stalingrad during the Second World War in tatters. It has been quietly urging Zelensky to find a way to end the war—even by resigning himself, if necessary—and to allow the process of rebuilding his nation to get under way. Zelensky is not budging, according to intercepts and other data known inside the Central Intelligence Agency, but he is beginning to lose the private support of his neighbors.
If Poland isn’t scared of Russia any more, then why would they want to end the war? As opposed to continuing on until victory?
That doesn’t make logical sense to me.
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Hersh does not know the history of WW2 on Eastern front. I would guess that Operation Bargation was the finest maneuver/battle(s) that USSR fought in WW2. Perhaps the Manchuria operation in 1945 is also very significant.
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I can at least construe that as meaning those particular Poles no longer fear being the *next* victim, since Russia didn’t exactly steamroll over Ukraine. But, yeah, it does come across as rather fuzzy.
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I get it. So yeah, maybe the Poles can live with the war ending without the complete destruction of Russia; and then they feel more or less comfortable living next to a “paper tiger” who can’t steamroll them.
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At the speed of the kinzhal missile, 1/100 seconds means being over 30m away from the missile itself. Practically the probability of a pac 3 missile aimed at hit and kill the enemy missile is very low. Claiming 6 were shot down is as pathetic as the ghost of Kiev.
During the last stage before getting to its target, the kinzhal is the most vulnerable as the patriot doesn’t need to follow Usain Bolt.. but again it depends on the algorithm and not on the operator. The time frame in which it’s probable to hit is lower than 80 seconds. So the only way to try anything is to saturate the air space with a salvo of patriot missile hoping to hit the arrival enemy missile.
The chances are very very low.
I was rather curious to know when Russia would be able to hit one part of the patriot system. And as one could expect, Russia didn’t hit the unit with the command center and it’s operators. That’s cohérent with the usual modus operandi of Russians. Not boasting oneself with killing the enemy no matter the cost in civil lives. But proving the enemy it’s superiority in the (vain hope, in this case) to lead him to negotiate.
So I am quite sure Russia has the ability to destroy with hypersonic missiles any component of the patriot systems.
Israel has some patriots in the north – I like to mention them as they need efficient systems and any time they used it, there was mishaps… So usually they use air force to monitor incoming threats and destroy them. According to one source I found online in Hebrew the only way to detect track and destroy a kinzhal is to have 24/7 AWACS and airplanes ready to try their luck… But in any case, it also needs to track missiles, analyse the predictability of its direction and speed. Then only radars and systems might be upgraded and perform defensive tasks.
In short, the US is absolutely unable in a short period of time to handle the hypersonic reality and resort to lame PR campaigns to idiotic public opinions ready to swallow anything that keeps their certainty that Russia has chips from washing machines…
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Thanks, Sacha, for your intelligent comment. That all makes sense. What you said about not hitting the human operators also jibes, believe it or not, with what some Ukrainian propagandists are saying. For example, yesterday on Latynina’s show, Arestovich claimed that the Russian kinzhal attack was motivated by a desire to force the Ukrainians to the peace table (once again), and to accept the Chinese plan.
Of course, Lusya then went on to spout the Party Line that all the kinzhals were shot down. His already big nose immediately grew on the spot, to Cyrano de Bergerac proportions!
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From what is said in the western media, according to the expert opinion of the specialists, the missile only burned the paint on some parts of the American super weapon. And that because it was poor quality Chinese painting.
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Well, that certainly sounds believable!
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I remember the response by American presstitutes when Putin announced that Russia had developed it’s hypersonic missiles. Ha ha, it’s impossible to build these weapons they said, the technology hasn’t been developed, especially by a such backward country as Russia.
Well, who’s laughing now a**holes? Bring on the F-16s, come on I dare you. By the time this war is over no country will want to buy American super weapons unless they are forced to.
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You never said what the 30 Patriot missiles were shooting at? Looked to me like the whole Patriot battery went haywire (or the operator) at the end they were taking off in the opposite direction at a reduced trajectory.
Whatever,,over $1 billion in western hardware destroyed in 2 strikes and poisoned Galician farmland.
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The missiles themselves panicked and literally committed suicide!
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…over $1 billion in western hardware destroyed in 2 strikes and poisoned Galician farmland.
“USA!!! USA!!! USA!!!”
“Huh? Oh … NEVER MIND.”-;^)
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https://readingjunkie.com/2023/05/16/patriot-missiles-fail-in-ukraine-and-its-not-the-first-time/
Back in the mid 2000s the then Indian regime of Manmohan Singh was falling over backwards to appease the George W Shrub dispensation. One of the things Shrub was pressing India to do was purchase the Patriot for the air force. To this end Indian newspapers like the Times Of India and the Telegraph (of Calcutta, not the London one) were paid by the American embassy to run propaganda articles extolling the virtues of this missile. I recall one particular article from 2004 which averred:
I immediately wrote an email to the editor pointing out that Iraq had no SCUDs in 2003, that if they’d had any, it would have justified the invasion, and asking whether the author of the article had bothered to do the ten seconds of research necessary to establish this fact.
They never published the letter, of course.
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Wow, this is a great article, thanks for posting! One thing I can’t figure out, maybe you (as an artist) can see better. What the heck is that bluish ribbon looking thingy at the top of the video frame? It looks like some kind of blue roof or ceiling, but it’s wavy.
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Corrugated iron sheeting.
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So, that must be over the building next to the one that housed the Patriots. I was reading yesterday the Patriots were probably housed in some airfield outside of Kiev. So, not in the city center. Thanks.
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It’s at a fair distance, taken from a CCTV camera. The Patriot system is large and unwieldy, can’t be put in a children’s playground or something like that.
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I think it was “Moon of Alabama” that pointed out that NATO forces manning the Patriot site “fired all their guns at once” to clear the site of unexploded ordnance because it was in a civilian area. And if I were an American soldier manning the site I would do the same thing but, it would be for a better chance at survival for myself and my fellow US Soldiers.
But it’s a big payday for Raytheon…pretty sure “the big guy” gets his customary 10% cut.
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.cqDKUrB6neSFZTpTsBG14gHaNK%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=01924725ecccaa880fbc7c5ddf5bf7f914dab256baf00e7fbf7b90ef52a4e464&ipo=images
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I saw that theory too: that it was American operators, and once they realized they were screwed, they fired off everything they had to destroy it, in order to make the upcoming big boom-boom less explosive (and to save civilian lives).
It’s a generous theory, but I suppose it’s plausible. Maybe they have a protocol for that. It would explain why the Patriot missiles just flew off haywire in all directions.
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I don’t know, yalensis. Personally, I think the operators panicked and “pwessed da wed button”.
“Don’t EVAH touch da WED button!!!”
– B. Bunny
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Haha! There is a reason why you are NEVAH supposed to push the red button. That’s why it’s red!
What the operators should have done was retreat to their Panic Room, put their hands over their ears and screamed loudly.
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According to calculations by one who knows (https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/anatomy-of-mim-104-patriot-destruction) the Khinzal would reach Kiev in 90 seconds from it’s launch site. There would be no time for the operators to know they were “screwed”.
It was a multi layered attack with drones and decoys (Khinzals have their own decoys) The Patriot shot it’s load at ghosts.
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That makes sense. So, no human operators? All decisions to launch made by robots and Artificial Intelligence. Wonderful. No wonder the human race is screwed.
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To amplify on that guy’s comments (even if he is a aggrotroll about Covid) re: the Simplicius post —
The decoy thing is probably why the Ukies claimed to have shot down 6 Kinzhals. Simplicius had some good pix there of the rear of a Kinzhal. It showed 6 round ports. These can apparently shoot out mini-missile decoys that emit heat and possibly radio-frequency signals so they LOOK like Kinzhals to the “INCOMING!” detectors on air defence weapons such as the Patriot. Simplicius also had a photo of the decoys.
How amazing (and horrifying, about the extent of humanity’s evil genius) is it that a relatively compact weapon (Kinzhal’s 7 metres long, but that’s way smaller than an airplane) can be designed so that it’s packed full of rocket fuel and high explosives, can blast to the edge of outer space, hit speeds so high that it turns the very atmosphere into a fourth form of matter (plasma is different to solids, liquids and gases), survive all that and still have room for little fake thingies that it poops out on the way down? If people used that kind of scientific genius to make better electric cars instead of death machines, we probably wouldn’t have to listen to Melon Husk (his name in dyslexia) so much. Actually, the Chinese are probably doing that as we speak.
So the Ukes weren’t making stuff up from whole cloth. They just got totally pwn’d. Six missile-shaped things hit the ground without exploding, so they were patting themselves on the back thinking they pulled off a momentous feat, except they got faked. This could also explain their claims of other amazing shoot-down days. They blasted decoys, or the decoys ran out of fuel and hit the ground harmlessly (unless someone had the random bad luck to be standing right where one fell.) That could also explain the reports of apartment buildings etc. being hit by the Evil Orc missiles. Crashing decoys.
This, therefore, squares the circle of possible explanations for the diverging Universe-views of the pro- and anti-Russian belief systems. The sad bastards that I mentioned previously who were cheering so heartily for the Ukrainian success stories weren’t believing in lies. They put their faith in fakes. Which is just about as dumb. But at least there’s no alternate-reality universe that’s seeped through a dimensional anomaly to overlap with out. Sometimes those carry anti-matter, and you know what a problem THAT stuff is to get out of your carpet…
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Great comment, Bukko. The decoy thing explains a lot of mysteries, and puts my mind to rest about that anti-matter stuff seeping into my carpet. I just had it steam-cleaned last week, so no spills allowed!
You also make a great (and sad) point about what the human race could be capable of, if we didn’t waste all that fantastic brain-power on war. I mean, we truly could be flying around with jetpacks and that sort of thing. Or maybe even (gasp!) find a way to stay young longer, with bionic bodies and stuff like that.
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The Ukrainian version of events reads like a porno story: There are 6 aerobics instructors with very long pointy penises. Near them, in the front row of the class are 9 men named Kalibr who are standing in a line and holding hands. “Turn, turn, KICK, turn!”
In the next row 3 very acrobatic ladies, all named Orlan, but whose naughty nickname is Supercum.
Another 6 ladies in tutus, because they were taking ballet and wandered into the wrong class. With them, 3 other dicks.
“Ladies, today we will be working on our glutes…”
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it’s like watching possible payment of all student debts in the US go up in literal smoke. hardly surprising, though…FNT and others have re-re-re-made the points about the patriots being overrated cack. if they were people they’d be starting to go bald and have kids in junior high by now. either there’s nothing but gul war-era surplus lying around or the US is afraid to send its newer garbage over and reveal its failings as well.
also:
https://www.csis.org/analysis/patriot-ukraine-what-does-it-mean
apparently the system is around $400,000,000 and the missiles are in the $690,000,000 range for a total of ~$1.1 BILLION dollars turned into scrap.
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While the repayment of debt racked up by the top 30% of US income households isn’t my idea of the Nation’s highest priority, you make a good point. With the amount expended…an awful lot of ragged/non-existent facilities in forgotten, poverty-stricken communities could be built…that money could also go to re-funding the industrial base of the US…and that’s just with Biden’s cut of the firework festivities.
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I take tiny comfort in the thought that the American government was NEVER going to pay off student debt anyhow. Even if they were literally rolling in money. It was never on the table, not until the Communist Revolution.
Because these guys, their ideology prevents them from every giving anyone a break, except themselves!
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Student loan repayment is a “bait ‘n switch” scheme…after all, if ever carried through, it can only be used once to gain votes but, by promising it every election cycle…well, it’s been said, “there’s a sucker born every minute”…nobody, least of all the DNC, ever lost money betting on the premise.
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Remember this [Conor McGregor vs Nurmagomedov]?:
Mr. Kinzhal: “Been there, seen it, done it, and gave away a T-shirt…”
There’ll be a lot of silent butthurt in the collective [US] west.
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“If the first 10 missiles don’t get Mr. Kinzhal…, the next 20 will!” General Ekstrim Vilʹnishyy
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It seems to me that USA and NATO are supplying old stuff, expired, out of warrantee gizmos to be used by whomever the Ukies can scare up. I think the USA will wind down when they run out of junk. The big win is the neocons got Russians to fight Russians in Russia, what’s not to like about that. That has got to weaken Russia, distract them and irritate VVP. IMO the big action is the sanctions, and that is going poorly for USA and amazing resilience and creativity in Russia.
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I just saw a photo recently of that “old junk” scam. I believe it was one of the 7 downed StormShadows with a stamped expiry date in mid-1995!!
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Correction: It was an AGM-88 HARM missile; the photo is shown at Simplicius’ site:
Nuclear Fallout? Russian Strikes Create Richter Scale Explosion in Khmelnitsky + Updates
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/nuclear-fallout-russian-strikes-create
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Who won the Kinzhal duel? What duel? Nobody in the Ukraine or NATO can prove any Kinzhals were intercepted. Not one ever, or we’d be seeing grinning Ukrops holding up pieces recovered from a farmer’s field or mind-boggling video of a plasma blowing up midair. No signs whatsoever of that. Fatuous bullshit to the contrary is the hegemonic way — you vill believe vot ve say or else, signed, Dr Strangelove.
On the other hand, there’s a photo of a remarkably undamaged Patriot missile, althogh looking decidedly second-hand, lying in a Kiev park. Must have come in at a shallow angle and pancaked. Anorak weapon-spotters claim it’s a new model, not the dregs from Loring AFB that closed in the ’90s. Myself, I wouldn’t know. This one just needs a paint touch-up and a few dents removed plus a wax job, and she’ll be good as new — useless.
Besides the high camp Progozhin war of words against the Russian MOD, the blowing up of the Khmelnitsky and other ammo dumps, the destruction of that Patriot battery, and nobody at home (Zelinsky on European sightseeing tour with nazi symbols on his T-shirt shaking hands with the Pomp), the Russian leadership must be laughing. Stick a fork in Ukraine, she’s done. Overcooked and tough to boot. Those native Ukie-speaking Ukrainians who fled to the West for free room and board obviously only intellectually care about defending their country, and bleat loudly. But as for actually showing up to fight Russia, no can do. They’re not that patriotic. Let’s face it, the place was an economic dump before the SMO, the worst-performing economy in Europe since the end of the USSR. By far, only at 57% of 1990 income per capita.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2023/05/ukraines-neoliberalism-on-steroids-europes-economic-suicide.html
Russia might as well roll up the rest of Ukraine, and lease the parts they don’t want to Chinese interests. This would not only cheese off BlackRock and Monsanto and all the other Western hyena companies who figure they own Ukraine because Zelenensky sold them forged paper in the best Wall Street tradition, but introduce an economic powerhouse to goose up rump Ukraine. That would royally cheese off the Poles, Finns, Latvians, Lithuanians, Germans, French and most importantly the Brits, it would be howlingly humorous as a finger-poke in the eye to the US neocon / neoliberal leadership. I hope it comes to pass.
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Great analysis. I saw in the news this morning that Zel has returned to Kiev and plans to meet with some Chinese diplomat.
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i’d love to see the brits cheesed off, right royally. -a.v.
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God Save King Chucky!
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I guess the AAA guys can stow the jacks and lug wrenches now:
Kinzhal Missile Strike Destroyed Five Patriot Launchers in Kiev – Russia
https://sputnikglobe.com/20230517/kinzhal-missile-strike-destroyed-five-patriot-launchers-in-kiev—russia-1110424974.html
While Kiev claimed it had intercepted six Kinzhals, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu told Sputnik in an interview that Ukrainian reports are mistaken in every regard, noting that only a couple of Russian missiles were enough to penetrate Kiev’s defenses.
“According to verified information, as a result of a strike by the Kinzhal hypersonic missile system in the city of Kiev a multifunctional radar station, as well as five launchers of the Patriot anti-aircraft missile system manufactured by the United States were hit and completely destroyed on May 16, 2023,” the Russian Defense Ministry said. …
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Did you see Beluga’s comment? One of the Patriot rockets ran away and escaped into a Kiev park with just a dent and needs a new paint job. AAA doesn’t cover that, but there’s a place near where I live, called Mr. Dent who will fix your minor dent for only $1000. A fresh paint job is extra.
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