How Kyiv fended off a Russian missile blitz in May

THE OPERATING manuals said it was possible. But it was only after the launch order was made—and a successful interception confirmed—that Vyacheslav convinced himself of it.

The 30-year-old Patriot operator recalls a moment of applause, joy and expletives as the Ukrainian air-defence officers realised they had made history that night of May 4th. The Russians’ “unbeatable” Kh-47 Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missile was not only beatable; but it was actually travelling at “only” around approximately 1,240 metres per second, a third of what the Russians like to claim. “We understood that the Patriot worked. The next time, when we saw not one, but six Kinzhals on our monitors, it was just a matter of getting on with the job.”

The Kinzhal interceptions were part of an extraordinary month for Ukrainian air defence. In the 31 days of May, Russia fired 16% of all the missiles it has used in 15 months of war, nearly three times the average rate. Most were aimed at the capital, Kyiv. It was not only the number but the type that marked a step up; Russia switched to rarer ballistic missiles like the Iskander-M and the Kinzhals as it struggled to find a way through. Kyivians were woken by early morning Russian “discos”—exploding drones and missiles—on no fewer than 20 nights. As loud as it was, very few missiles found their way through the shield. The performance of the capital’s air defenders made some observers conclude that the city has become the most protected on earth.

Ukraine owes its high-end missile-defence strength to new Western hardware. But that its air defence—and the country—survived at all is down to the Ukrainians’ agile use of vintage Soviet systems such as the Buk, S-125 and S-300. In the early days of the war, many of Ukraine’s air defences were damaged and destroyed. General Anatoly Krivonozhko, the man in charge of Kyiv’s skies, describes heroic “duels”, in which divisional commanders manned guns without support teams, understanding that sooner or later a missile would get through and kill them. “This is how we survived. We lost people across the whole country. It was a close call.” Some mobile Buk surface-to-air systems continued to operate independently from hideouts behind the front lines, denying Russia supremacy in the skies even in areas where it notionally had control. Several Russian planes were ambushed in this way.

General Krivonozhko says that the construction of Kyiv’s missile shield began in May 2022. Before then, missile defence had been limited to defending strategic sites. The shield adapted as Russian tactics evolved—and the Western appetite for risk increased. For a long time the main assistance Ukraine received was in man-portable air-defence systems (MANPADS) such as Stingers, which were first delivered before the war. By the time Russia turned its attention to a drone and missile campaign against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure last autumn, Ukraine had already taken possession of the first of its advanced batteries, the German-produced IRIS-T system. Soon after came NASAMS systems, supplied by America and Norway, similarly capable against cruise missiles. Ukraine’s first Patriot PAC-3 system came online on April 21st, the second on April 27th.

Hesitant Western leaders explained their initial reluctance to supply Ukraine with powerful air-defence systems by citing the long training programmes they would require. The reality has been somewhat different. Vyacheslav trained on the Patriots in Oklahoma and Poland for three and a half months instead of the regular six. Denys Smazhny, a training co-ordinator for IRIS-T and NASAMS, suggests even that was too long. There was nothing exceptionally difficult in the largely automated Western systems, he contends. An IRIS-T system was “far less complicated” than the Buk system he used to operate: “It’s like switching from a calculator to a MacBook Pro. The Western batteries basically do the work for you.”

Kyiv’s missile-defence system is organised in layers to ensure overlapping coverage. Powerful systems like the Patriot, NASAMS and IRIS-T sit at the top of the tree. They can communicate with each other straight out of the box, pooling radar visibility and range. But Ukraine has also just completed a process of integrating other kit, including Soviet-era Buks and S-300s, into a new centralised command system. When a target is identified, the most effective missile is used against it, hitting it as far away from the city as possible.

The first step of Kyiv’s missile defence is a network of mobile gunnery units: essentially pickup trucks with machineguns or MANPADS installed in their cargo beds. These units are the first line of the capital’s defence against drones. Each takes responsibility for an individual sector on the flight-path towards the capital. Most have night-vision equipment and searchlights; some have low-flying detection radars.

In one of the sectors alongside the Dnieper river, approximately 20km south of Kyiv, a sleep-deprived gunner with the callsign “Speckled” describes the protocol for intercepting drones. Usually the targets first appear as a moving dot on Kropyva, Ukraine’s proprietary defence mapping system. The characteristic moped-like hum of the motor comes a few minutes later. The challenge lies in latching sensors onto the sound signal, Speckled says. “If you do that, and your missile functions, the drone has no chance.”

Ukrainian air-defence officers say the Russian military is always switching tactics and looking for weaknesses. That can mean sending dozens of missiles and drones along a single corridor of attack, in the expectation that local mobile units will run out of ammunition. They sometimes do. It can mean flying drones at a maximum altitude, and then turning off their engines, making them less visible, before letting them glide to their targets. Or it involves varying the times and trajectories of attack to avoid radar-tracking. In one late May daytime assault on Kyiv, for example, the capital was attacked from all sides, with drones and advanced KH-101 cruise missiles programmed to take twisty turns to their targets. Some survive. “The Russians have to try to find new ways to get through,” says General Krivonozhko. “Some of the missiles cost $10m and when six, eight, ten of them don’t find their targets, there are tough questions for the leadership.”

Keeping ahead will not be straightforward. The defences above central Kyiv might for now be world-leading, but Russia’s goal of exhausting the city endures. “They want mass emigration and to make Kyiv unviable,” says General Krivonozhko. The skies in other parts of the country are meanwhile much less well protected. Russia can and does change focus to other cities—to devastating effect. On June 13th cruise missiles hit Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine’s industrial powerhouse in the south, destroying an apartment block and killing at least ten people. There is a constant tension between employing systems in civilian areas or at the front lines.

The hope now is to construct two echelons of air defence at the national border, working alongside modern Western-built fighter jets to shoot missiles down well before they reach big cities. It would be a massive undertaking, requiring time and money that Ukraine might not have, the general concedes. But Russia is showing no sign it intends to step down its campaign of terror. “The threats will be with us for a long time to come.” ■