MOSCOW, May 17th. The destruction of Patriot anti-aircraft missile systems in Kiev by a Kinzhal missile attack was expected due to the high technical characteristics of this Russian development, military expert Tyler Rogovei said in an article for War Zone.
«Possibility of damaging or destroying the system «Patriot» by enemy fire should not come as a surprise. <…> Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missiles would be the best conventional weapon to successfully attack these batteries. They were designed, in part, to evade higher-level anti-missile defenses » , the analyst recalled.
Such air defenses would have been hit anyway due to their radars, which emit a powerful electromagnetic signature that is easy to detect and geolocate, writes Rogovei.
According to him, even the most «nimble «The Patriot modification is quite static, and it takes a certain time to move around.
«There was simply no doubt that these batteries would attract missiles like a magnet,» the expert concluded.
By a Dagger strike on May 16 in Kiev, a multifunctional radar station (RLS) and five launchers of the Patriot air defense system were destroyed, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported.