MOSCOW, August 15. /TASS/: Ukrainian air defenses cannot fight Russian Kh-22 cruise missiles, Ukraine’s Air Force Command Spokesman Yury Ignat said in a live broadcast on the Rada television channel on Tuesday.
"Not a single [Russian] Kh-22 cruise missile has been destroyed by Ukrainian air defenses not only over the past night but also over the entire period of military operations," he said.
The Ukrainian Air Force Command spokesman claimed, however, that such missiles could be shot down by US-made Patriot air defense systems. In particular, the Patriot anti-aircraft missile system could allegedly down Russian Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, he said.
As the spokesman earlier admitted, Ukrainian air defenses are helpless against Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, Iskander tactical missiles, missiles of the S-300 anti-aircraft missile system, Oniks supersonic cruise missiles, Kh-31P air-launched anti-radiation missiles and rockets of the Smerch multiple launch rocket system.
As The Washington Post reported, Russia’s use of Kinzhal hypersonic and Kh-22 cruise missiles has shown that the United States and its allies do not possess similar weapons that are hard to intercept by modern missile defense systems. In the estimate of some domestic and Western experts, even advanced air defense systems cannot reliably shoot down such Russian missiles.
