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| Russia claims to have hit Ukrainian territory with a Kinzhal hypersonic missile, which was spotted under a Russian MiG-31 jet |
International Military - Kinzhal which means 'dagger' in Russian, is a lethal hypersonic missile. This hypersonic missile is one of several next-generation weapons that President Putin released in March 2018.
Quoted from missilethreat.csis.org, Kinzhal is a ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear payload weighing 480 kg. It is known that Russia used it to attack Ukrainian military assets in March. However, there are some parties who are not afraid of the power of this Kinzhal missile.
For them, the term hypersonic attached to this missile is an exaggeration. The term hypersonic itself is currently often associated with modern weapons in development. Whereas in the past, hypersonics was related to the speed of a platform that exceeded Mach 5.
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Quoted from 19fortyfive.com, the Kinzhal missile is nothing more than a conventional 1980s air-launched ballistic missile. Some people also think that many media are too "scare" the world with the horror of this missile.
And sure enough, neither Russia nor some media did take advantage of this misunderstanding. As a matter of fact, hypersonic speed isn't all that special. If you stick to “speeds over Mach 5”, it has been around for decades.
For example, the space shuttle has a speed exceeding Mach 25. So, it can be said that the planes that have been launched by humans are also hypersonic. And in fact, almost all ballistic missiles have the same speed.
That is, United States ICBM missiles, even Elon Musk's Falcon 9 rockets also have this speed. Again, the Kinzhal missile is an air-launched ballistic missile that has been around since the 1980s. And it's not a new weapon, the Kinzhal is a modified version of the ground-launched Iskander missile.
The Iskander itself is a short-range ballistic missile developed in 1988. Both the Kinzhal and the Iskander travel at hypersonic speeds. They fly through a quasi-ballistic flight path that never leaves the atmosphere.
These two missiles are great because they can maneuver while flying to avoid interception. However, because it was built in 1988, this missile is far from the level of "high-tech". Even so, the features of the Kinzhal missile cannot be underestimated.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said, "Russia has deployed Kinzhal several times in Ukraine and gave a good performance," he explained. As already mentioned above, the Kinzhal hypersonic missile is one of the “latest generation” weapons. That was stated by Vladimir Putin in 2018.
Quoted from Defense View, this missile is capable of reaching almost any point in the world. And it can easily penetrate advanced Western air defense systems.
The Kinzhal is a hypersonic ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. Again, this missile carries a payload of 480 kilograms, which is 33 times more powerful than the “Fat Boy” bomb of Hiroshima in 1945. It is designed to be fired from a MiG-31 fighter jet at an altitude of about 18 kilometers. And later, Russia's fifth-generation fighter, the Su-57, will also operate alongside the missile, according to Thinktank.
In addition to operating with fighter jets, the Kinzhal can also be launched from warships. Kinzhal himself pinned the word "hypersonic" because the speed of this missile reaches Mach 10. Between Mach 5 to 10 that is what is called hypersonic speed.
This missile is also claimed to be capable of hitting targets as far as 2,000 kilometers if released from the Tu-22M strategic bomber. With its extremely high speed and maneuverability, it was impossible to intercept this missile. In fact, Russia claims that none of the top anti-missile defense systems in the world are capable of dealing with it.