Moscow's claim about firing hypersonic missiles could be more hype, experts say

The Kh-47 Khinzhal strike on a supposed underground munitions storage facility we discussed in INTSUM 19MAR22 increasingly appears to have been a fiction. The Russian Ministry of Defense released footage of this strike, but subsequent analysis by other outlets suggest that this is unlikely. The Drive has some good commentary on the subject. It seems that the video does show a strike, but not by a Kh-47 and not against a munitions depot. The Russian MoD claims that their Kh-47 strike took place in the far west of Ukraine, near Delyatyn. Instead, geolocation of the video, supported by commercial satellite imagery, suggests that the video shows a strike against a farm in eastern Ukraine, and may have taken place some days ago. There’s been another reported use of the Kh-47 in Kyiv, but that, too, seems unlikely. More likely it was a regular Iskander-M (see below). As we discussed recently, I am skeptical that Russia has many of these weapons available. In fact, Russia’s precision-guided munitions (PGMs) stockpiles are also suspect, and Russian industry doesn’t appear to have the capability to surge and produce more, at least not very quickly. US defense officials state that they’re seeing a substantial number of failures with Russian PGMs, whether they’re not launching, not able to hit their targets, or not detonating.

No matter - the end result is the same. Putin is killing innocent Ukrainians.

PO1 William "Chip" Nagel
..."But so far, Pentagon officials and military experts say, what Russia has unleashed appears to be hypersonic hype about a potentially devastating weapon.

“It’s a bit of a head-scratcher to be honest with you,” a Pentagon official told NBC News on Monday. “If it’s true, why would you need a hypersonic missile fired from not that far away to hit a building?”

Military experts said the only reason Russian President Vladimir Putin would resort to using this kind of weaponry against the outgunned Ukrainians at this point would be to score propaganda points.

“Russia doesn’t have many of them and, frankly, doesn’t need to use them in this conflict,” said Mark Cancian of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “They’re very, very fast and designed to evade missile defenses.”

But, he said, “Ukraine doesn’t really have missile defenses.”...