KIEV (AP/Al Jazeera) – Ukraine’s air force claimed Saturday to have downed a Russian hypersonic missile over Kiev using newly acquired American Patriot systems, the first known time the country has been able to intercept one of Moscow’s most modern missiles.
Air Force commander Mykola Oleshchuk said in a Telegram post that the Kinzhal-type ballistic missile had been intercepted in an overnight attack on the Ukrainian capital earlier in the week. It was also the first time Ukraine is known to have used the Patriot systems.
“Yes, we shot down the ‘unique’ Kinzhal,” Oleshchuk wrote. “It happened during the night time attack on May 4 in the skies of the Kiev region.”
Oleshchuk said the Kh-47 missile was launched by a MiG-31K aircraft from the Russian territory and was shot down with a Patriot missile.
Ukraine took its first delivery of the Patriot missiles in late April. It has not specified how many of the systems it has, but they have been provided by the United States, Germany and the Netherlands.
Germany has acknowledged sending at least one system and the Netherlands has said it has provided two.
Meanwhile, The chief of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner on Saturday asked Moscow to let him hand over his positions in the hotspot city of Bakhmut to Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov.
“I ask you to issue a combat order before 00:00 on May 10 concerning the transfer of the positions of the Wagner paramilitary units in Bakhmut and its periphery, to the units of the Akhmat battalion” Yevgeny Prigozhin said in a letter to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.
The Akhmat battalion refers to the Chechen combat units under the command of strongman Kadyrov, who has ruled Russia’s Chechnya for the last decade and a half.
Prigozhin said his fighters would be forced to pull out because of a long “ammunition famine.”
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military has brushed aside claims by the head of Wagner force that he will withdraw his fighters from the battle for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, saying the forces were holding firm and receiving reinforcements.
The battle for Bakhmut, which Russia sees as a stepping stone to other cities in Ukraine’s Donbas region, has been the most intense of the war, costing thousands of lives on both sides in months of bloody urban warfare.
Despite Prigozhin’s claims of withdrawal, the Ukrainian military has not seen any signs of an imminent withdrawal of Wagner forces from Bakhmut, Ukraine’s military intelligence representative Andriy Chernyak told the RBK-Ukraine news agency.