They Tried To Destroy Patriot Air Defense System With 16 Ballistic Missiles, Including 6 Kinzhals - Commander Of 96th Anti-Aircraft Brigade

On the night of May 16, Russia attacked Kyiv with 16 ballistic missiles, six of which were aeroballistic Kh-47 Kinzhal. Air defense forces shot down all these missiles. The commander of the 96th anti-aircraft missile brigade of the Center air command, Colonel Serhii Yaremenko with the call sign "Hranit", told ArmyInform about how it happened.

According to Yaremenko, even before May 4 (when the first Kinzhal missile was shot down), no one was sure that the Patriot was capable of destroying the Kh-47.

Commander of the brigade reported that on May 16, 16 ballistic targets flew at Kyiv almost simultaneously from different directions, most of them aimed at the Patriot complex.

"I am always proud of my subordinates, but this time even I was shocked by their endurance. People understood that ballistic missiles were moving directly at them. They did not panic for a second, acted in a coordinated and organized manner, distributed the targets by sectors, ensured their destruction at a minimum range, high enough to reduce the probability of damage to the infrastructure," Yaremenko said.

He added that he was in touch with the division commander and understood what a serious professional and moral test this was.

"After the report "The airspace is clean, all targets destroyed" no one restrained their emotions... Later we found out that among these targets there were 6 Kinzhals. I think that the same emotions as ours were also felt in the partner countries" the military said.

Yaremenko said that the anti-aircraft military have a tradition of marking destroyed targets on the complexes, but the stencil for Kinzhal has not yet been made.

According to him, during the month of operation Patriot destroyed more than 80 air targets.

It will be recalled that earlier the USA confirmed the interception of the Kinzhal missile over Ukraine with the help of the Patriot air defense system.

Meanwhile, the fourth developer of hypersonic missiles was arrested in Russia.