Kyiv under attack: the first missile attack in 2023

Nothing in reality, except for comments from especially "credible sources", does not indicate a decrease in their potential for delivering missile and drone strikes, including a sufficient supply of appropriate weapons, which, moreover, is being intensively replenished by manufacturers who have embarked on wartime rails. Moreover, castling in the command of the Russian army is also aimed at increasing the effectiveness of military operations - which means that "arrivals" are not only expected, but should be considered as a constant threat.

The peculiarity of today's strikes is that almost everywhere they were inflicted BEFORE the air raid alert. In Kyiv, even at first they declared the morning explosions "not related to hostilities." But in fact, of course, they had such an attitude: as of 11.30 am, it is already known about the defeat of a "critical infrastructure facility" and several cases of damage by fragments of cars. Also in the Goloseevsky district, a warehouse caught fire and the roof of the garage was damaged. An attack on Kharkov was confirmed, which led to a stoppage of traffic on the subway and emergency power outages in the city and region.

Post hoc showered with numerous messages about the massive takeoffs of Russian missile carriers and the entry into the sea of ​​"caliber" ships with a warning about the possibility of a new wave of missile attacks. However, until noon, no new strikes were recorded, and air warnings were canceled in the warning networks - which, however, does not preclude further action by the RF Armed Forces.

In our opinion, the morning delay in signaling a missile attack was due to the fact that the attack was carried out not by "usual" "calibers" and missile carriers, but with the help of quasi-ballistic missiles of the Iskander complex. This was previously confirmed and press officer of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Yuriy Ignat.

"Most likely, these are missiles that flew along a ballistic trajectory. From the northern direction. Ballistics is not available for us to detect and shoot down."

The difference between cruise and ballistic missiles is that aircraft takeoffs are much easier to track than launches from a mobile missile platform, which can be applied from almost anywhere, and not from well-known airfields. Therefore, the likelihood that even powerful US reconnaissance satellites did not see such launches is extremely high. And with the declared flight range of 500 km (many experts believe that in reality it is much higher), the targets of the Iskanders can become objects on almost the entire territory of Ukraine.

Moreover, the trajectory of a ballistic missile goes far up, and most of it passes at an altitude of more than 50 km, which makes it very difficult to detect it by air defense and almost completely eliminates its defeat any existing systems, including the same Patriot, which we are waiting for. Unlike cruise missiles, whose flight takes place at low altitude, the Iskander warhead falls "right on the head" at hypersonic speed, while at the finish target hitting site it can maneuver with overloads up to 20-30G - which, again, capable of driving any object air defense crazy.

In foreign publications on protection against damage by Iskander complexes, it is directly stated about low probability of repelling his attack even the most modern missile defense systems, such as the American THAAD. At the same time, one should not forget that the Iskander complex also includes a version of the Iskander-K missile, which just has a trajectory similar to the "calibers", but can fly at an altitude of up to 6 km, descending before hitting the target up to 7 meters. This feature of it also leaves very little time for the air defense system to detect, target and destroy, since at such a height a fast-flying missile can only be detected at its very approach.

Monitoring groups also report that today's attacks clearly no means of attack located in Belarus took part, - Aircraft of the RF Armed Forces did not take off from its airfields, and rocket launches from the country's territory were also not recorded. At the same time, one must understand that the command of the Russian army is free to choose options for delivering strikes, and therefore we would not draw serious conclusions from today's "silence" on the part of Belarus.

All of the above leads to the idea that the "big offensive" of the Russian army, about which we also repeatedly wrote, enters the final stage of preparation, and today's strike with ballistic complexes can be considered as one of its links.