Russia is again attacking an airfield in Ukraine where F-16 fighter jets are suspected. Kinschal rockets flew again. Again with no result.
Starokostiantyniv – “The Russians have serious suspicions that the F-16s are stationed in Starokostiantyniv,” says Valery Romanenko. The Ukrainian News Agency quoted the head of the Ukrainian State Aviation Museum as saying Unian on current attacks by Vladimir Putin’s air force on various airports. Russia has probably once again targeted the runways of the Western F-16 fighter jets, which cost up to $75 million, some with Kinschal (“Dagger”) missiles. However, the effectiveness of the missiles still appears to be questionable. Russia had already launched attacks several times.
Apparently the aggressor had recently attacked several facilities at the same time and with different weapons. The Ukrainian Air Force has reported that its radio troops discovered and tracked more than 80 air targets Unian reported. Accordingly, at around 8:20 a.m. on Monday (October 7), three MiG-31K aircraft from the airspace of the Tambov region (departure airfield Savasleika) attacked the area of the Starokostiantyniv airfield in the Khmelnitsky region with three Kh-47M2 Kinschal aeroballistic missiles.
Russia targets Ukrainian airfield: Kinschal attack is said to have targeted F-16 fighter jets
The Air Force also reported loudly Unianthat Russia attacked simultaneously on the night of October 7th with an Iskander-M ballistic missile, X-59 missiles and several drones. In the Kharkiv frontline region, several hits by enemy attack drones were recorded, as was a hit by the Kinschal. One of the three “Daggers” actually hit the Starokostiantyniv airfield region, and two of the rockets were shot down. In addition, 37 Russian drones were lost in various regions of Ukraine, probably as a result of active electronic warfare countermeasures, explained Unian.
“The allegedly undetectable Russian precision weapon ‘Kinschal’ is above all a propaganda weapon. Because a rocket that supposedly flies at ten times the speed of sound and can also be equipped with nuclear warheads is initially intended to spread fear.”
Valeri Romanenko is certain that the Kinschal attack was aimed at F-16 fighter jets for two reasons, he told the news agency Unian expressed: “First, because of the 7th Tactical Aviation Brigade with Su-24 aircraft carrying Storm Shadow cruise missiles. In addition, international exercises took place in Ukraine together with the US Air Force at two airfields. One is Mirgorod. And the second is Starokostiantyniv,” as he says. This is well-known information. According to him, the Russians must suspect more to it.
It might also have been spurred on by the fact that the Netherlands had now made it public that the first F-16s delivered to Ukraine came from them and that the next of the 24 promised aircraft would quickly follow. This was first officially announced by the country’s Defense Minister, Ruben Brekelmans X confirmed how Unian reported. However, Starokostiantyniv has been a popular target of Russian aggression for months. The airfield was probably last attacked in mid-July – the air force base there has been under fire for more than a year.
Bases of F-16 fighter jets in focus: Putin’s air force is said to be hoping for a “lucky hit”.
They would hope for a “lucky hit,” says Oleksandr Musienko. The scientist from the Kiev Center for Military-Legal Studies said, according to the Kyiv Postthat Putin’s troops speculated on killing pilots or destroying parked aircraft – like Ukraine’s recent case with Putin’s prestige bomber Su-57 at Akhtubinsk airfield in Russia
had succeeded. However, since the Ukrainian pilots would normally have enough warning time to evacuate the aircraft or take cover before a missile strike, the main goal of the Russian attacks on Starokostiantyniv is to destroy the air base’s infrastructure, the portal writes.
Due to the current take-off of the MiG-31K – presumably from the airspace of the Tambov region – an air raid alarm was triggered throughout Ukraine Unian writes. Explosions could be heard as far away as Kyiv. As the capital’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, later reported, fragments of enemy missiles fell in the Solomensky district – in several places in open space Unian. Fragments of rockets are also said to have fallen in other cities – apparently the remains of the Kinschal rockets that were fired.
Putin’s hypersonic flop: The nimbus of the miracle weapon is now badly tarnished
The weapon is considered the most powerful in the Russian Air Force and is said to be able to cover distances of up to 2,000 kilometers. It was intended to prove Russia’s technological advantage over the West – however, less than twelve weeks after the outbreak of war in February 2022, Ukraine managed to launch its first missile.
Now, a year and a half after that first hit against a Kinschal, the aura of the “miracle weapon” is badly tarnished, if not completely gone – as the US magazine recently said Newsweek had reported. Putin’s much-vaunted Ch-47M2 Kinschal hypersonic missile appears to be underperforming in Ukraine as Moscow continues its long-range bombardment of Kiev and other major cities.
Russian forces have regularly used Kinzhal, which Putin described in 2018 as one of Moscow’s “invincible” weapons, to destroy Ukrainian cities and infrastructure targets across the country during their two-year invasion of the neighboring country. Hypersonic missiles reach speeds of at least five times the speed of sound, fly low and are maneuverable; therefore, they are considered a difficult target for air defense systems.
In theory, Russia’s “miracle weapon” can still be intercepted
Lyle Goldstein and Nathan Waechter also write about a Chinese study on the weapon that Russia’s “miracle weapon” has now largely been disenchanted: “The largest part of its ballistic trajectory is cut off at an altitude of 50 kilometers at the interface between the stratosphere and the mesosphere. Theoretically, it can still be intercepted by the modern missile defense systems currently in use.”
The Chinese study comes to the conclusion that, in addition to the construction, the precision also falls short of Russian expectations and propaganda, as the authors of the US think tank RAND summarize. Air-based launch platforms certainly have their advantages in the flexible design of the attack and the use of the element of surprise, but ground-based systems should be able to fire more precisely. Air-launched hypersonic missiles “rely on satellite navigation systems that continuously provide the missile computer with precise coordinates so that the guidance system can correct course deviations in real time,” as Goldstein and Waechter report.
Putin’s “dagger”: Kinschal rocket is primarily intended to spread fear in the Ukraine war
The Chinese study is worth mentioning because China is meticulously monitoring the duel between hypersonic missiles and Patriot air defense systems. The leadership hopes to draw conclusions about how its own hypersonic missiles performed in combat, as Taiwan shields its most important targets with Patriot batteries, including key radar and command centers.
However, Russia is said to have difficulties with electronics and also has too few satellites in orbit. These deficiencies resulted in “accuracy being unsatisfactory,” analysts said. As various media outlets have reported, Russia appears to have neither accurately located the F-16 locations nor neutralized Starokostiantyniv airfield. In the meantime, Russia had also tried to equip the Kinschal warheads with cluster munitions in order to perforate the runways.
The F-16 is said to be very sensitive to the ground conditions on its runway. Even without a direct hit on the machines, the hypersonic weapons could destroy all of the defenders’ efforts to gain air superiority. In fact, the latest attack hardly achieved what Putin’s air force had hoped for.
The author Stefan Troendle has Putin’s “miracle weapon”. Südwestrundfunk flatly picked apart: “The supposedly undetectable Russian precision weapon ‘Kinschal’ is above all a propaganda weapon. Because a rocket that supposedly flies at ten times the speed of sound and can also be equipped with nuclear warheads is initially intended to spread fear.”
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