Ukraine intercepts 'unstoppable' Russian Kh‑22 missiles for the first time
Ukrainian air forces have announced that for the first time, they intercepted Russian Kh-22 missiles - reports the Defence Blog portal. This is a weapon that, until recently, Ukrainians themselves described as impossible to stop. We remind you of its capabilities.
Regular Russian attacks on Ukraine are usually repelled by the defenders' air defense—at least to some extent. Although it is difficult for Ukrainians to achieve 100-percent effectiveness in shooting down enemy missiles, generally, it can be assumed that the local army has the appropriate equipment to deal with various threats from Russia.
On the list of missiles used by the Russian Federation is a weapon that, as admitted in 2023 by Ukrainians, "cannot be stopped." It refers to the Raduga Kh-22 missiles, which, according to reports by the Defence Blog (citing the Ukrainian air forces led by Mykola Oleshchuk), have been intercepted for the first time during the night of April 18 (Greenwich Mean Time). Ukrainians did not disclose how the interception was made. However, it is known that 2 out of 6 missiles fired in the Black Sea region from a Tu-22M3 bomber were intercepted.
finally, they stopped the "unstoppable" weapon
The history of the Kh-22 missile dates back to the 1950s. In 1958, the USSR responded to the British developing their Blue Steel system. Moscow then began research on a weapon under the working name D-2. Its first prototypes began to appear a few years later, in 1962, while new missiles were deployed on Tu-22 bombers in 1967.
Since then, the Kh-22 has undergone a series of modernizations. Among them, presented in the 1970s, are two versions equipped with nuclear warheads—Kh-22MA and Kh-22PSI. Each of the variants was designed to carry ammunition in Tu-22 planes (also in newer versions M, M2, and M3), from which they are still launched to this day.
The difficulty in intercepting these Russian missiles comes primarily from the high speed achieved by the Kh-22 during flight. In principle, the Kh-22 is detached from the carrying aircraft at an altitude of several miles and then climbs to about 12 miles. Subsequently, the missile accelerates, reaching a speed of about 3 Mach (approximately 3580 km/h).
When the Raduga Kh-22 gets near the intended target, it begins to dive – starting an almost vertical descent, accelerating to an even greater speed of 4 Mach (about 5000 km/h). With such speed, the missile hits the target. At the same time, besides the damage caused by the warhead itself weighing nearly 1 ton, the construction causes additional damage due to transferring a large amount of energy by the missile weighing nearly 5 tons, which hits directly at the target.
Intercepting such a fast-moving missile had been impossible for Ukrainians until now. At the beginning of last year, the army reported that it failed to shoot down any Kh-22 out of more than 200 fired by Russians toward Ukraine. The first shot-down "unstoppable" missiles could, with high probability, have been destroyed by Western air defense systems (including Patriot, SAMP/T).
