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Once touted as Putin’s invincible hypersonic dagger, the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal missile has suffered severe combat setbacks in Ukraine. Exposing major discrepancies between advertised capabilities and operational reality—including reduced speeds, severe accuracy errors, and vulnerability to Patriot air defenses—Russia has halted Kinzhal production to prioritize Iskanders. Discover how Ukrainian base strikes, electronic warfare, and domestic interceptor development dismantled the Kremlin's wonder weapon narrative.
⏱️ CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Russia Halts Kh-47M2 Kinzhal Missile Production
03:37 - Adapted Iskander Architecture & MiG-31K Launch Platform
05:49 - Strategic Doctrine & Bypassing NATO Air Defenses
06:50 - Western Hypersonic Deficits vs. Israeli Air-Launched Ballistics
08:44 - Patriot Deployment Shatters Kinzhal Invincibility Myth
10:22 - Terminal Guidance Failure and EW Degradation
13:37 - Ukraine's Interceptor Deficit & Bimodal Ballistic Defense
17:34 - Deep Strikes Target MiG-31K Fuel & Airbase Bottlenecks
20:22 - Project FREYJA and Ukraine's Domestic Anti-Ballistic Program
22:59 - Why the Mach-10 "Wonder Weapon" Failed
Support us directly as we bring you independent, up-to-date reporting on military news and global conflicts by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMilitaryShow/join
#militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis
#themilitaryshow
SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/1WRSKZQJ
Become a Member Today and Unlock EXCLUSIVE Videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKfak8fBm_Lhy4eX9UKxEpA/join
Once touted as Putin’s invincible hypersonic dagger, the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal missile has suffered severe combat setbacks in Ukraine. Exposing major discrepancies between advertised capabilities and operational reality—including reduced speeds, severe accuracy errors, and vulnerability to Patriot air defenses—Russia has halted Kinzhal production to prioritize Iskanders. Discover how Ukrainian base strikes, electronic warfare, and domestic interceptor development dismantled the Kremlin's wonder weapon narrative.
⏱️ CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Russia Halts Kh-47M2 Kinzhal Missile Production
03:37 - Adapted Iskander Architecture & MiG-31K Launch Platform
05:49 - Strategic Doctrine & Bypassing NATO Air Defenses
06:50 - Western Hypersonic Deficits vs. Israeli Air-Launched Ballistics
08:44 - Patriot Deployment Shatters Kinzhal Invincibility Myth
10:22 - Terminal Guidance Failure and EW Degradation
13:37 - Ukraine's Interceptor Deficit & Bimodal Ballistic Defense
17:34 - Deep Strikes Target MiG-31K Fuel & Airbase Bottlenecks
20:22 - Project FREYJA and Ukraine's Domestic Anti-Ballistic Program
22:59 - Why the Mach-10 "Wonder Weapon" Failed
Support us directly as we bring you independent, up-to-date reporting on military news and global conflicts by clicking here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMilitaryShow/join
#militarystrategy #militarydevelopments #militaryanalysis
#themilitaryshow
SOURCES: https://pastebin.com/1WRSKZQJ
Category
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NewsTranscript
00:01On the evening of July 5, 2025, every air raid app in Ukraine went off at once.
00:07The trigger was a single aircraft rolling down a runway more than 600 kilometers away,
00:13a modified MiG-31 interceptor carrying a missile the size of a telephone pole.
00:18That missile was the Kh-47M2 Kinzol, and for a few years,
00:23it was the most feared conventional weapon in the Russian inventory.
00:26Russian President Vladimir Putin had introduced it to the world in 2018
00:31as a hypersonic dagger that no air defense on Earth could stop.
00:36Ukraine's own monitoring channels spotted the takeoff at around half past five in the afternoon.
00:41Two missiles came off the rails minutes later, aimed at the Hemelnevsky oblast.
00:46Then, nothing happened.
00:48During the alert, there had indeed been a Russian attack, but there were no casualties and no destruction.
00:53Euromaiden press ran the story under a headline that's aged extremely well.
00:58No hits, no harm.
01:00Fast forward to August 2026.
01:03Russia is firing more missiles at Ukraine than at any point in the war.
01:07Ukrainian cities are being hit night after night, and one weapon is conspicuously missing from the mix.
01:12According to Major General Vadim Skibitsky, Deputy Chief of Ukraine's Defense Intelligence,
01:18the Kremlin stopped building the Kinzol in April.
01:21One reason he gave was that the missile kept missing.
01:24A weapon in that class supposedly needs to land within five to seven meters of its aim point to be
01:29worth firing.
01:31The Kinzol often lands within 30 meters or more.
01:34His verdict on four and a half years of combat use was that they could hardly recall a single instance
01:39where the missile hit its target precisely.
01:41So, let's dive into the Kinzol and what makes it potentially useful, how it failed, and what exactly is being
01:47done about it.
01:51Are we already in World War 3?
01:53Because depending on what you read, it can feel like we're living in completely different realities.
01:58And keeping up with the news isn't the hard part anymore, it's figuring out what's actually true.
02:03Take this story covered by nearly 200 sources across the spectrum.
02:08It reports the US military says its blockade of Iranian ports has completely halted economic trade within 36 hours.
02:15But just one day earlier, another story, mostly covered by nearly 80 sources, most being left-leaning,
02:22said marine traffic in the Strait of Hormuz was barely affected on the first day of the blockade.
02:26So, which is it? Total shutdown? Barely a disruption? Or can both be true?
02:32That divide in coverage is exactly why we use Ground News to help keep us informed on the multiple active
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03:35With that said, let's begin with the design of the Kinzhal, as all its problems stem from there.
03:41The missile was never designed from a blank sheet.
03:44According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies,
03:47concept drawings showing Iskander missiles hung from a MiG-31 were circulating online as early as 2010,
03:54reportedly lifted from a Russian defense industry brochure.
03:57The Kinzhal was reportedly an adaptation of the 9M723.
04:01The concept was that you take a short-range ballistic missile, redesign the tail section, trim the rudders,
04:08add a stub to protect the engine nozzle during high-speed flight,
04:11and hang it off an aircraft that can already cruise above Mach 2 at 60,000 feet.
04:16Only the last part is actually innovative.
04:19Launching a ballistic missile from a fast, high-flying aircraft hands the weapon a huge amount of energy.
04:24The carrier does the first stage's job for it.
04:27A missile that reaches a few hundred kilometers from a truck,
04:30can reach well over 1,000 from a jet, and the launch point moves.
04:34CSIS also listed the Kinzhal as having a 480-kilogram nuclear, or conventional payload,
04:40and a range of 1,500 to 2,000 kilometers.
04:44A 2018 TASS report claimed that figure would exceed 3,000 kilometers
04:48if the missile was carried by a proper 2-22M3 bomber.
04:52It entered testing in 2017.
04:55By December of that year, the system entered a trial period at airfields in southern Russia,
05:00with a batch of modified MiG-31 case.
05:03In March 2018, Putin unveiled it in his address to the Federal Assembly
05:07as one of the six next-generation weapons,
05:10alongside the Avangard Glide Vehicle and the Poseidon Torpedo.
05:14Reports that year indicated six MiG-31s had been modified to carry Kinzals.
05:19A Kinzal was reportedly deployed to Syria in 2021,
05:23although there's no reliable evidence that it was fired there.
05:26In early 2022, Kinzal-capable MiG-31Ks were reported deploying to Kaliningrad.
05:32And in March 2022, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced it had struck an underground munitions depot
05:38near Deliatin in Ivanovranskievsk Oblast, the first known combat use of the weapon anywhere in the world.
05:45So, what was it supposed to be for?
05:47This is where the marketing and the engineering start to drift apart.
05:51CSIS assesses that Russia likely developed the Kinzal to threaten critical European infrastructure,
05:57like airfields and strategic centers.
06:00The logic is that most of these can't actively shoot at an aircraft that uses a beyond-visual-range weapon.
06:06So, a MiG-31 can fly to the edge of a defended area, launch, and give shorter-range systems like
06:12Patriot minimal time to react.
06:14Better still, an aircraft can attack from any compass bearing it likes, and Patriot radar doesn't cover a full 360
06:20degrees.
06:21Then there's the missile speed, which reportedly hits Mach 10.
06:25CSIS noted the missile accelerates rapidly to around Mach 4 after launch, and that this speed, combined with an erratic
06:32maneuvering trajectory, could complicate interception.
06:35But while Putin called the weapon hypersonic, it's more fair to call it a slightly faster ballistic missile, as that's
06:41how it operates.
06:42So, how does it stack up against Western equivalents?
06:46Well, it turns out that when put within its actual category, it doesn't have that much more of an advantage.
06:51The United States has spent the better part of a decade trying to field an air-launch hypersonic weapon, and
06:57repeatedly fell on its face.
06:58The AGM-183A ARRW, a boost-glide missile carried by the B-52, was effectively shelved after the Air Force
07:07decided in 2023 not to proceed with the program, although the Air Force later considered reviving it.
07:13The Army's ground-launch Dark Eagle, formerly known as the long-range hypersonic weapon, entered fielding in late 2025 after
07:21years of delays.
07:22The Air Force's scramjet-powered HACM has slipped repeatedly.
07:27As of mid-2026, the Government Accountability Office was still writing about schedule constraints and production bottlenecks.
07:34On paper, Russia won that race by eight years.
07:38The real Western analogues are Israeli.
07:41The Rampage, unveiled in 2018 by Israel Military Industries and IAI, is an air-launched ballistic missile with a range
07:48of only 150 to 250 kilometers.
07:51Air Laura, rolled out by Israel Aerospace Industries in June 2024, is bigger and has a range of 430 kilometers.
08:00Both are fractions of the Kinzhal's reach, but they both fit on a stock F-16 rather than requiring a
08:06bespoke interceptor conversion.
08:08And more importantly, both are advertised with a circular error probable of around 10 meters, whereas Ukrainian intelligence says Kinzhal
08:15missiles can deviate by 30 meters or more.
08:18That's the whole argument in one line.
08:20The Kinzhal is unique because it's a strategic-range nuclear-capable air-launched ballistic missile with no direct NATO counterpart
08:27in service.
08:28But being unique is not the same as being useful, and the metric that decides whether a precision weapon is
08:33worth its price tag is how accurately it lands.
08:37Which brings us to the combat record, and to May 2023.
08:41But before we do all that, we need your support.
08:44If you like the military show and want to support our effort of providing up-to-date news, you can
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08:53For the first 14 months of the full-scale war, the Kinzhal really was untouchable.
08:58Ukraine's Soviet-era S-300s were never designed for that threat.
09:02Kinzhal's carriers took off, Ukraine went to a nationwide alert, and there was nothing anyone could do but wait.
09:08Then Patriot batteries arrived.
09:10On the night of May 4, 2023, Ukraine reported intercepting a Kinzhal over Kyiv for the first time.
09:17The crew that operated the interceptors only realized what they had killed when they found the debris.
09:22Twelve days later, Russia reportedly sent six Kinzhal's at Kyiv in a single night.
09:27Ukraine's then-commander-in-chief, Valery Zaluzny, said all six were intercepted, along with nine Calibers and three Iskanders.
09:34Moscow insisted Russia hadn't launched as many Kinzhal's as Ukraine claimed to have shot down,
09:39while simultaneously claiming that a Kinzhal had destroyed a Patriot radar and five launchers in Kyiv.
09:45Then the numbers started coming out, and they were unkind to the original Russian claims.
09:50Ukrainian Patriot operators told The Economist in June 2023 that the missile's real speed was closer to Mach 3.6.
09:57By 2026, the Mach speed was re-evaluated as Mach 5.7.
10:02That's up against the claimed Mach 10, a substantial difference between the advertised and assessed speeds.
10:08By July 2024, Ukraine suggested more than 20 Kinzhal's had been aimed at Kyiv since Patriot went on combat duty,
10:16and that every single one had been intercepted.
10:18And when Kinzhal's were fired at places Patriot was not covering, they generally got through.
10:23Which is why the accuracy problem is the real story, because Russia can put a missile over a target.
10:29What it apparently can't do is put the warhead on it.
10:32Let's look at the Sterakosty-Anthonyv airbase.
10:35It's home to the 7th Tactical Aviation Brigade, and it sued 24 bombers.
10:40And it's been one of Russia's most persistent targets since 2022.
10:44It's absorbed drones, cruise missiles, and Kinzhal's for years.
10:48And when Euromaiden press reviewed satellite imagery of the base in 2026,
10:53the craters were ringing the airfield rather than sitting on it.
10:56Russian military correspondents themselves circulated satellite images in November 2025
11:01that showed deviations of up to 144 meters, and those sources were arguably pro-Russian.
11:08So why does a missile with an inertial navigation system, satellite correction,
11:13and a terminal radar seeker land 30 or 100 meters off?
11:17There are several plausible reasons, and it's likely that they stack up.
11:20Guidance inherited wholesale from the Iskander was never built for the thermal and plasma environment
11:26of a much faster, higher energy air launch profile.
11:29Satellite correction is jammable, and Ukraine has poured enormous effort into electronic warfare,
11:34since Ukrainian forces have deployed EW systems intended to confuse the missile's flight controls
11:40and push it off course.
11:41And a terminal seeker looking through a superheated shock layer at Mach 5 Plus
11:46is solving a much harder problem than the same seeker at Mach 3.
11:49Now here's the part that should have embarrassed somebody in Moscow years earlier.
11:53Back in March 2022, days after the first combat use, then-CNA analyst Michael Kaufman wrote publicly
12:00that he didn't understand the interest in the Kinzol, and that there was nothing special or particularly exciting about the
12:06system.
12:06He characterised it as essentially an Iskander adapted for a more complicated and expensive launch method.
12:13And yet, it took the Russian Ministry of Defence roughly four years to arrive at the same conclusion.
12:17And when it did, the decision was ruthless.
12:21According to Russian Defence Ministry documents, Kolomna contracted 44 Kinzols in 2024 and 144 in 2025.
12:30And then, the production line stopped dead by April 2026.
12:33But other lines for ballistic missiles are humming.
12:36In July 2026, Russian industry reportedly produced 65 Iskanders against a target of 60, hit 140% of plan on
12:45the KH-101
12:46and 111% on the Kalibur, with Ukrainian military intelligence assessing the main missile lines running at 110 to 120
12:54% of plan overall.
12:55So, the Kinzol is arguably disappearing because it lost an internal budget fight to cheaper missiles that actually hit what
13:02they're aimed at.
13:03The last confirmed Kinzol launch may have been on May 14, 2026, when three of them went out as part
13:10of a strike involving 731 missiles and drones.
13:13The threat didn't go away.
13:15Russia instead shifted resources toward other ballistic missiles, particularly the Iskander.
13:20Now, if you're finding this useful, take a second to subscribe.
13:24This channel digs into the systems behind the headlines, and the algorithm only shows you the next one if you
13:29tell it to.
13:31Now, let's get to the part everyone gets wrong.
13:34Because there's a widespread assumption that Ukraine handled the Kinzol by shooting Kinzols down.
13:39It didn't.
13:40And Ukraine's record against ballistic missiles is, frankly, poor and only getting worse.
13:45The Royal United Services Institute sent out a report in November 2025, which examined a data set of Russian missile
13:53strikes compiled by Ukrainian researchers.
13:56By late October 2025, 939 Iskanders and Kinzols had been fired at Ukraine.
14:03Only 227 were intercepted.
14:05That's 24%, which sounds tolerable until you look at how those intercepts are distributed.
14:11Across 345 attacks involving those missiles, there were only 18 in which most or all of the incoming missiles were
14:18stopped.
14:19In 273 of those, Ukrainian air defenses intercepted nothing at all.
14:24And a total of 593 of those missiles got through.
14:27Russia's point is that intercept data against ballistic missiles is bimodal.
14:32Either you kill nearly all of them, or you kill none of them, depending on whether the target was inside
14:37the coverage of one of Ukraine's small number of Patriot and SAMT batteries.
14:41And the trend inside those defended areas has been going the wrong way.
14:46Russia noted intercept rates in Patriot defended areas dropped around 15% across 2024, recovered somewhat in mid-2025 to
14:54roughly 30% over the summer, then fell again to 17% across the first three weeks of October 2025.
15:01Russia examined three explanations and didn't identify any one of them as distinctly responsible, suggesting that they were likely adding
15:09up.
15:09The first is that Russia is firing Iskander's on steeper, more lofted trajectories, which shortens the defenders' engagement window.
15:17Because lateral maneuvering force scales with velocity squared.
15:21This lets the missile jink harder on the way down.
15:23The second is improved decoys, as the Iskander has long carried six 9B999 decoys in its base, and reports of
15:31a software upgrade fit a decoy improvement better than they fit a trajectory change.
15:35The third is saturation salvos, where other missiles were used as bait.
15:39This one is most contested, since ballistic tracks are relatively easy to identify and prioritize even in a crowded raid.
15:47Whatever the cause, by 2026 the situation had become dire.
15:51And the reason is that the Patriot PAC-3 MSE is Ukraine's most capable interceptor for engaging maneuvering ballistic missiles
15:58in their terminal phase.
15:59And Ukraine ran out of them.
16:01And the resupply picture got worse, rather than better.
16:05The war with Iran that began in late February 2026 tore through the global Patriot inventory.
16:10CSIS has estimated the United States expended more than two thirds of its pre-war interceptor stockpile.
16:17Combined American production has also been running at under 1,000 interceptors a year.
16:22Ukraine has reportedly received about 600 interceptors in four years, but says it needs 2,000 a year.
16:28Then came the political whiplash.
16:29At the NATO summit in Ankara, President Donald Trump publicly announced that Ukraine would receive a license to manufacture Patriot
16:37interceptors,
16:38although subsequent reporting indicated uncertainty over the timing and location of production.
16:43And in late July 2026, Ukrainian President Vladimir asked for several hundred interceptors in the Oval Office and was refused,
16:51with Trump citing depleted American stocks.
16:53In August, the US ambassador to NATO said that no long-term production agreement would be concluded before winter.
17:00At the same time, Zelensky said Ukraine was receiving around two and a half times fewer interceptors than in 2025,
17:07while Russia was firing roughly twice as many ballistic missiles per month.
17:11So, Ukraine can't shoot down the ballistic threat and can't buy enough of what would let it.
17:16What did it end up doing?
17:17It went after the launchers and it started building its own interceptor.
17:21Let's start with the campaign to remove the offensive pressure of firing the missile.
17:26In August 2026, the Institute for the Study of War assessed that Ukrainian forces appeared to be targeting Russian ballistic
17:33missile launch infrastructure,
17:34precisely because of the anti-ballistic interceptor shortage.
17:38It went after fuel depots, munitions depots and the airfields themselves.
17:42And no target illustrates that better than Savaslieka, an airbase in Nizhny Novgorod oblast,
17:48roughly 650 to 700 kilometers from the Ukrainian border and home to MiG-31Ks.
17:54A 2024 strike started a major fire in the fuel and lubricant storage area,
17:59and footage filmed by Russian personnel appeared to show a drone striking the aircraft parking apron with a MiG-31
18:05visible in frame.
18:06In June 2025, Ukraine claimed it damaged two aircraft,
18:10likely a MiG-31 and a Su-30 or Su-34.
18:14And in August 2026,
18:16Zelensky said that Savaslieka had been hit again,
18:19with domestically produced Flamingo cruise missiles and drones reportedly involved.
18:23Monitoring channels reported four MiG-31s scrambling away from the base
18:27toward Begishevo Airport in Tartastan while the attack was underway.
18:31This strategy works against Kintals precisely because it's a much more specialized Iskander.
18:37The Kintals' entire launch chain can be described as a bottleneck.
18:41An Iskander launcher is a truck.
18:42Russia has a lot of trucks.
18:44They hide in tree lines.
18:45They shoot and scoot.
18:46The Kintal needs an airbase,
18:48and it needs an aircraft that exists in tiny numbers.
18:51The MiG-31K and MiG-31I fleet,
18:54which comprises the models that can carry the missile,
18:56has been estimated to be only around two dozen airframes.
19:00And Russia is no longer producing MiG-31s to replace or retrofit them.
19:04Those airframes also need long runways and specialist maintenance.
19:08The MiG-31 burned T-6,
19:10a heavy heat-stable kerosene formulated for sustained supersonic flight at altitude,
19:15where ordinary jet fuel would cook.
19:17The aircraft can technically fly on standard kerosene,
19:20but with restrictions on flight modes that would basically prevent it from deploying a Kintal in the first place.
19:25Burn the specialist fuel farm at Savaslieka,
19:28and you've made every subsequent sortie harder.
19:31The economics are also brutal in Ukraine's favour.
19:34A long-range strike drone can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
19:38Ukraine's newest deep strike types run in that range,
19:41with one recent design reported at around $50,000.
19:44Against that, a single Kintal cost about $4.5 million,
19:48and its carrier is an out-of-production interceptor that Russia can't build more of.
19:53As a result, Russia has been forced to shelve the missiles and applicable aircraft deeper into the interior,
19:59with Kintal carriers reportedly being pushed farther east,
20:02potentially increasing their reliance on aerial refuelling from the II-78 tankers.
20:07This is counterbalanced by Ukraine's domestic interceptor.
20:10That is FREYA, a European-led anti-ballistic missile project involving Ukraine and multiple European partners.
20:17Ukraine builds the interceptor and the launcher.
20:19European partners are involved in developing or supplying radar, seeker, and sensor components.
20:24The interceptor itself is the FP-7.X from Firepoint,
20:29unveiled in July 2026 and derived from the company's FP-7 ground-launched ballistic missile.
20:35What makes FP-7.X a possibly viable solution is its ancestry.
20:40Firepoint based the FP-7 on the 48N6,
20:43which is the interceptor that arms Soviet-built S-300 batteries.
20:48Ukraine has operated the S-300 for decades,
20:50understands the airframe intimately,
20:52and has a large rocket industry capable of producing solid propellant.
20:56The plan swaps the 48N6's aluminum structure for a lighter composite frame with better manoeuvrability.
21:02The genuinely hard part is the Sika, as the 48N6 rides a beam from a ground radar,
21:08while a modern hit-to-kill interceptor requires an advanced Sika capable of providing terminal guidance.
21:14That's beyond Ukraine's industry's abilities today,
21:17which is why Firepoint says it's co-developing the Sika with Germany's deal defense.
21:21The approximate cost for a Freya round is also only $700,000 against roughly $4 million for a Pac-3.
21:28But Freya has not yet demonstrated a ballistic missile interception.
21:33Firepoint representatives initially said the system could begin intercept testing by the end of 2026,
21:39while later statements pushed the expected operational timeline into 2027.
21:43By August, he was describing a full-scale launch of the anti-ballistic interceptor by mid-2027.
21:50Zelensky's own framing on August 6 was that Ukraine expects concrete results by the turn of 2026-27.
21:57Firepoint is also under investigation by Ukraine's National Anti-Corruption Bureau
22:02over allegations of inflated component prices and overstated drone deliveries,
22:06meaning that it's possible those timelines are inflated.
22:09So if you ask which Ukrainian domestic solutions have actually worked against the Kinzhal,
22:14the honest answer is not the interceptor.
22:16It's the three unglamorous ones.
22:19First, you have long-range drones and Ukrainian-built cruise missiles reaching vital nodes in the launch chain.
22:25Second, you have electronic warfare, aimed at the guidance rather than the airframe,
22:29likely contributing to the failures in accuracy that made Russia stop producing more.
22:34And third, Ukraine is capable of tracking the missiles in flight.
22:37Then there's another wrinkle in that Ukraine is building its own Kinzhal.
22:41That's Firepoint FP9 with a range of 850 kilometers and an 800 kilogram warhead.
22:48If that ever flies, Ukraine joins a club of about two.
22:51So the verdict is that the MAC-10 wonder weapon failed because it was oversold in its uniqueness
22:56compared with how it actually performs and what's needed.
22:59Its advertised speed was roughly double its measured speed.
23:03Its accuracy, per Ukrainian military intelligence,
23:06is four to six times worse than the standard for its class.
23:09It cost $4.5 million a shot and required a bespoke fleet of two dozen irreplaceable aircraft to deliver.
23:16And in April 2026, Russia turned off the line and gave the fuel and components to missiles that work.
23:23The lesson of the Kinzhal is not that wonder weapons can be shot down,
23:27but that wonder weapons are actually a substitute for the boring things that actually win wars.
23:32Accuracy, cost and volume.
23:40And if you want to look at the exclusive content we work hard on making and keeping up to date,
23:45become a member to support our efforts.
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