In recent weeks, Ukraine’s air defences have demonstrated a significant performance increase compared to late 2022. Ukrainian air defences shot down
73 out of 90 Russian cruise missiles (81 per cent) in November 2022 and
60 out of 76 (79 per cent) in December 2022. By contrast, during the recent attack on 6 June, Ukrainian air defences put in a perfect performance, destroying all
35 cruise missiles launched from Russia.
A few days earlier, Ukrainian defences shot down all drones and missiles over Kyiv for three days in a row (on
24 May,
25 May, and
26 May). On
28 May, Russia launched the largest drone attack thus far on the capital, with around 40 Iranian-made Shahed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Once again, all the targets over the capital were shot down. The most notable success occurred on 16 May, when Ukraine
destroyed all six Kh-47 Kinzhal hypersonic missiles Russia fired at Kyiv. The Kremlin had previously
called the Kinzhal “invulnerable” to anti-missile systems.
yle.fi
