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The Kh-47M2 Kinzhal,
aka the Dagger, the Killjoy,
is a 26-foot-long
hypersonic ALBM
that can carry a nuclear warhead,
a 1,000-pound payload,
for some 1,250 miles
On March 9, 2023, 62 missiles
rained down on Ukraine—
28 Kh-101/Kh-555 ALCMs,
20 Kallibr SLCMs,
6 Kh-22 AShCMs,
2 Kh-31 AShMs,
6 Kh-59 guided SAMs—
together with 19 Shahed-136/131 drones,
killing
5 people in Lviv Oblast
1 person in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.
With only soviet-era defenses,
they hit their targets.
“Invincible,”
“cutting-edge,”
“hypersonic.”
Adjectives touting
Muscovy’s supremacy.
“The situation is unique
in modern history,”
gloated Putin.
“Not a single country
has hypersonic weapons,
let alone with
intercontinental range.”
In fact, the Kinzhal is
just an upgrade
of the older, ground-launched
Iskander, Muscovy’s answer
to the Scud, modified
to be air-launched.
As to its much-vaunted
hypersonic speed,
since the German V-2s began
pulverizing London,
all ballistic missiles
reach hypersonic speeds
at certain phases of flight.
The true capabilities
of the Kh-47M2
were only properly tested
when Patriot systems
arrived in Ukraine.
In April,
in just over two weeks,
seven out of seven
Killjoys were knocked
out of the sky.
PS On May 16,
Putin’s boast that Kinzhals
worked perfectly
notwithstanding,
the third scientist
in the Kinzhal troika
was charged with high treason—
the day Ukrainian Patriots
shot down six incoming Kinzhals.
Valery Zvegintsev joined
Anatoly Maslov and Alexandr Shiplyuk,
two other Kinzhal scientists,
charged with treason
the previous summer.
July 10, 2923
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