Kinzhal hypersonic missile strapped to a Russian MIG-31k, Victory Day parade — WikiCC

Will Lockett, writing at Medium, assesses Putin’s use of a hypersonic missile, shot down by Ukrainian defense forces, to be a tactical blunder showing that Russia is running desperately low on ordnance.  Advantage, Ukraine!

While Russia is armed to the teeth with Soviet-era nuclear weapons, they haven’t been Putin’s trump card when it comes to his idiotic invasion of Ukraine. After all, there is very little point in nuking a place you want to eventually control, and doing so would spark World War III with massive Western retaliation. Instead, Putin has devastated key areas deep in Ukrainian territory with deadly hypersonic missiles capable of evading all known defence systems. These “unstoppable” missiles are at the forefront of military technology, as even the US has no way of defending against them. At least, that’s what we thought. You see, a US-supplied Patriot missile defence system recently shot a Russian hypersonic missile out of the sky over Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. So, is Putin’s ultimate weapon a dud? Or is something else afoot?

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Putin has relied so heavily on long-distance missile strikes that Russia is running out of regular cruise missiles. In fact, they have even had to resort to using out-of-date Soviet nuclear missiles with the warheads removed (read more here) to make up for the shortfall. So they are likely using Kinzhals in a similar manner to make up for a lack of available missiles. Tactically, this is great for the short game but terrible for the long game. It may give them more firepower now, but it will sacrifice their ability to use these missiles later on in the closing months of the war, when Kinzhals would be at their most effective.

So yes, a Patriot defence system did take down Putin’s secret weapon, but it doesn’t make this hypersonic missile a dud, and it doesn’t mean Ukraine can now defend against this threat. The real story here is that Russia is wasting one of its most potent and scarce weapons on low-impact targets just to fill in for a shortfall in firepower. This astonishingly obvious tactical blunder means that Ukraine won’t have to defend against hypersonic missiles for long and means that when they come to booting the last of Putin’s forces off their home turf, they will have the advantage as the Russians scramble to arm themselves.

Glory to Ukraine!