Thanks to new western air defense systems and careful coordination, far fewer Russian missiles are hitting their targets.

Kyiv Journalist Kseniia Lisyncha was awakened at 3 a.m. Tuesday by what turned out to be Russia’s largest missile barrage against the Ukrainian capital in weeks. But unlike the early days of the war, when Kyiv was devastated by such attacks, this time not a single Russian missile reached its target. According to Ukrainian officials, all 18 missiles were shot down, including six Kinzhal “hypersonic” ballistic missiles. Videos posted to social media showed the night sky lit up by both the Russian missiles and the Ukrainian air defense interceptors.

“It was 'Star Wars' in the sky,” said Lisnycha, who assisted The Messenger in reporting this article.

It happened again early Wednesday - the ninth Russian aerial assault on Kyiv this month. There were fewer missiles this time, but once again Ukrainian authorities said every one of them had been destroyed.

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Russian missile and drone attacks against military and civilian targets have been a regular feature of the war, but Ukraine’s ability to thwart those barrages has vastly improved. In the war’s first weeks, the Ukrainians intercepted around 10 percent of incoming Russian cruise missiles; by late 2022, that number was up to 75-80 percent, according to Ian Williams of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Based on the most recent strikes, Williams says, the rate may now be as high as 90 percent. (There’s less data when it comes to Russian drone strikes, which are so numerous the Ukrainians don’t always report them, and ballistic missiles, which they’ve only recently started intercepting.)

Much of that improvement is due to the arrival of high-tech western missile defense systems to complement Ukraine’s extensive Soviet-era air defenses. The system that has gotten the most attention is the U.S.-made Patriot, which uses advanced radar to detect and destroy incoming threats, particularly hard-to-intercept ballistic missiles. The Biden administration reversed course and decided to send a Patriot battery to Ukraine in December, after months of saying it was not appropriate for the conflict. Another Patriot system was donated jointly by Germany and the Netherlands.

The Patriot appears to be the system that is shooting down the Kinzhal, the “next generation” hypersonic Russian missile, which can travel up to 10 times the speed of sound and is designed to evade advanced air defense systems.

“What we’re seeing now is a major gap getting filled,” CSIS’s Williams told The Messenger. Until the Patriots came online, the Ukrainians had no defense against ballistic missiles like the Kinzhal.

The "petting zoo" of Ukraine's air defense

The Patriot is not a panacea, and given that each of its interceptors costs up to $3 million, it’s not a practical tool for shooting down the kind of antique cruise missiles and retrofitted drones that Russia is also firing at Ukrainian cities. But experts say it’s part of a layered air defense program comprised of systems from different countries (sometimes referred to by Ukrainian officials as a “petting zoo”).

Russia’s defense ministry said it destroyed one of Ukraine’s Patriot batteries during the Tuesday morning strike, a claim the Ukrainian government denied. According to CNN, U.S. officials described damage to the system as “minor” and said it would not need to be removed from the battlefield. Still, the strike underlined the risk that the Patriot, which emits a powerful and trackable electromagnetic signal, can itself become a target.

In addition to the new western systems, Williams attributed Ukraine’s recent air defense success to improved early warning systems - including aerial surveillance over the Black Sea - and Russia’s surprisingly predictable patterns of targeting.

Increased urgency

Can the Ukrainian successes last? A February Pentagon assessment that was part of the tranche of documents leaked to the online chat network Discord warned that Ukraine’s air defense ammunition, particularly interceptors for its older Soviet systems, were running perilously low. The assessment suggested those stocks might be totally exhausted by May.

Williams acknowledged that “there’s probably not a single Buk interceptor left in the free world,” referring to one of those Soviet air defense systems, but said the shortage had “created a sense of urgency” that led to the accelerated delivery of western systems.

At a meeting with reporters at the German Marshall Fund in Washington last month, Oleksandra Ustinova, a member of Ukraine’s parliament, said that Ukraine realized that when it came to Soviet interceptors, “eventually we were going to have nothing to shoot with. That’s why…we started talking about the need to switch to NATO systems.”

Air defense systems and munitions have consistently been a part of U.S. aid packages for Ukraine, including the most recent $1.2 billion package announced on May 9. Air defense was also a priority in the recent aid packages announced by France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

But the number of air defense systems is still limited and not all cities have the level of protection enjoyed in the capital. The day after the successful interceptions in Kyiv, a barrage of cruise missiles struck the southern city of Mykolaiv, partially destroying a shopping mall and a car dealership.

“They can’t defend everything,” Williams said. “They have to make decisions.”

Kseniia Lisyncha contributed reporting.

Joshua Keating

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