The Ukraine invasion could see a very dark turn about very quickly as Russian forces began to deploy the use of Kinzhal hypersonic missiles. This marks the first time Russian forces have used hypersonic missiles in combat. It is also a big tell that up until now, Vladimir Putin didn’t think his forces were doing very well.
The Russians used the Kinzhal hypersonic missiles to wipe out an ammunition storage facility underground in Delyatyn, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast.
Russia has bragged about its hypersonic weapons’ capabilities, including missiles that cannot be picked up on traditional anti-missile defense systems. Among those, are the 3M22 Zircon missile that flies at a low orbit and has the capability of speeding past any early detection systems. It has a range of 1,000 kilometers or 621 miles.
“The Russian Zircon hypersonic missile’s stealth features have been disclosed,” reported TV Zvezda, a state-run Russian television network. This implies that the missile has been used against the Ukrainians, adding, “The speed of the Zircon hypersonic missile is so high that it prevents the opponent’s air defense system from detecting its impact in time.”
The outlet continued by suggesting that the “launch will be known only after the target has been hit” and that the missile has “variable trajectory” that makes it extremely hard for even the most advanced defense systems to detect it.
WATCH:
Igor Krokhmal (there’s always an Igor), the commander of the frigate that launched the missile, said, “No one will see the missile launch or its flight. They will only see when the missile hits the target.”
The US Sun reported that Igor bragged that there won’t be anything that can offset the Zircon missile for years to come.
“A surface target, a coastal target. I don’t think there will be anything to counter this in the next few years,” Krokhmal said.
When the missile was being tested back in December, Russian President Vlad-The-Crazy-Putin said, “Zircon are our newest missiles fired from the sea at sea targets, and land targets.”
Putin added, “The tests were carried out successfully, flawlessly” and said that “this is a big event for our country, a significant step in improving Russia’s security, in increasing defensive capability.”
Of course, it’s Vlad-The-Crazy-Putin saying that, so you have to take it with a grain of salt. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful turn of events if a Ukrainian technology scientist quickly came out with a detection system that can pick up the hypersonic missiles?
But all is not lost. According to VOA News, US officials have said that there are some ground-based radars that can detect hypersonic weapons, but there aren’t yet enough of them to give sufficient warning of an attack. Officials, like the now-retired General John Hyten, the former vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, campaigned for the construction of a space-based radar system. Maybe that is why former President Donald Trump started the Space Force because he saw what America’s enemies were building and he wanted to get a jump on it. What better way to capture missiles than from space?
Speaking of America’s enemies, the Communist Chinese government last October launched a nuclear hypersonic missile into space that they say was able to go around the world without being detected.
The Long March rocket, that was operated by the China National Space Administration, reportedly caught American intelligence agencies by surprise.
“We have no idea how they did this,” an anonymous U.S. official told the Financial Times.
Our intelligence community missed an awful lot of things they should have caught, like the 9/11 attacks, the Arab Spring, the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, and the collapse of the Soviet Union, just to name a few. And now, the hypersonic missile era. It seems the only thing they are good for is attacking Republican presidents they don’t like.
Rich is a conservative, syndicated opinion writer and owner of MAGA-Chat.com. He writes about politics, culture, liberty, and faith.
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