U.S.-built Patriot air defense system back in action in Kyiv after Russian hypersonic missile strike

Pentagon officials said Thursday that a U.S.-built Patriot air defense system is back in action in Kyiv after it was damaged in a Russian missile strike. On Tuesday, Russia launched an air barrage at Ukraine’s capital, including several Kh-47 Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, the most sophisticated conventional weapons in Moscow’s arsenal.

The Kremlin has boasted that the Kinzhal can fly at speeds up to Mach 10 and would outmatch the weapons of any adversary. On Thursday, Russia’s defense ministry said the May 16 strike not only destroyed a Ukrainian radar station but “completely destroyed” five Patriot missile launchers.

But Ukrainian officials contended that none of the cutting-edge Russian hypersonic missiles reached their target, and the Pentagon is pushing back on Russia’s claims that a Patriot missile defense battery, one of the most state-of-the-art U.S.-built weapon systems, had been disabled in the assault.

“One Patriot system was damaged but it has been fixed and is fully back in operation,” Sabrina Singh, a Pentagon spokeswoman, told reporters during a Thursday afternoon briefing.

Ukrainian officials said Russia fired 27 missiles and drones at Kyiv, including at least six Kinzhal missiles that Moscow insists can’t be taken out by any known weapon system.

“Our air defenses shot down every single one — including the ‘invincible’ Kinzhal,” Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said on Twitter. “American-made Patriot missiles found them quite ‘vincible.’”

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On Thursday, the Pentagon said the U.S. provided “some assistance” to Ukraine to get the damaged Patriot back in operation. They declined to say whether that meant doing repairs under U.S. supervision at the scene, a rear area depot, or through a video link.

Russian attacks on Kyiv have not subsided with the latest happening early Thursday as both sides dueled it out in missile battles in the sky. It was believed to be the ninth such attack on Ukraine’s capital this month.

According to media reports, Ukraine fared as well Thursday as it did two days earlier. Russia launched 29 missile and drone attacks in their latest salvo with Ukrainian defense ministry officials saying all but one were intercepted. One person was killed and two were wounded by a Russian missile that got through and struck an industrial building in the southern region of Odesa, Serhiy Bratchuk, a spokesperson for the region’s military administration, told the Associated Press.

The missiles were launched from Russian sea, air and ground bases, General Valerii Zalozhniy, the Ukrainian commander-in-chief, wrote on Telegram, according to the AP.

The Russian barrage comes as both sides brace for a widely anticipated spring offensive from Ukrainian forces in the south and east against entrenched Russian and separatist forces.

In Washington, the Reuters news agency reported that the Pentagon acknowledged that it had overestimated the value of the ammunition, missiles and other equipment sent to Ukraine by about $3 billion, an accounting error that may clear the way to speed more arms and military support to Kyiv.

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The error was the result of assigning an improperly high value on weapons that were taken from U.S. stocks and then shipped to Ukraine, two senior defense officials said on Thursday.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, Alabama Republican, and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, Texas Republican, called the discovery of the large miscalculation “extremely problematic.”

“The Biden administration must make up for this precious lost time by using these funds to provide Ukraine the [weapons] they need to fuel the counteroffensive and win the war,” the lawmakers said in a statement.

— This article was based in part on wire service reports.