Russian Kinzhal Missiles Losing Patriots Battle Frustrates China

Chinese defense experts have been less than impressed about the performance of Russia’s hypersonic Kinzhal missiles, especially when it comes to their survivability against the Patriot air defense systems used by Ukraine.

Beijing is taking notes, analysts say, because the same American-made surface-to-air missile system is deployed by Taiwan, whose army has over a dozen batteries in addition to domestically produced air defense systems.

The Russia-Ukraine War, now approaching its second full year, has afforded both the Pentagon and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army the chance to gauge how Moscow’s war machine matches up against Western military advances.

Observers believe China is paying careful attention to the successes and failings of its Russian ally—and those of Ukrainian forces equipped with U.S. weaponry—to ready its forces for a potential showdown with the United States over the future of self-ruled Taiwan, which Beijing claims is part of Chinese territory.

Russia’s Kinzhal missile, which translates to “dagger,” is not the game changer the Kremlin had hoped it would be, a Chinese analyst concluded in a recent article published by one of the country’s defense industry journals.

U.S.-supplied Patriot missiles began intercepting Kinzhals soon after Kyiv took delivery of the launch systems last spring, according to Ukrainian and U.S. officials. It raised serious questions about the extent of any war-fighting edge the missiles might have given Russia.

At the urging of President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, the U.S., Germany and the Netherlands provided his defenders with several Patriot batteries last year, components that include a command center, radars, antennae, a launcher, missiles and a power generator.

The capability significantly boosted Ukraine’s air defenses against Russian missile barrages, which have devastated its cities.

“There is more and more evidence showing that what the U.S. and Ukraine say on this matter is true,” Chinese analyst Yin Jie said of the downed Kinzhal missiles in the November issue of Ordnance Industry Science and Technology—a state-approved periodical.

In a January report for The Diplomat magazine, Asia security expert Lyle Goldstein of the Defense Priorities think tank and policy analyst Nathan Waechter of the Rand Corp. think tank said Yin was notably downbeat about the Kinzhal missile.

Kinzhals were largely based on 1980s technology and likely are now very limited in number, Yin said, noting that their “ability to perform long-distance gliding in the atmosphere”—a key measure of the quality of hypersonic weapons—”falls short.”

The Russian and Ukrainian defense ministries did not immediately respond to Newsweek‘s requests for comment.

Hypersonic missiles, which fly travel at 1-5 miles per second, deliver their payloads in a range of ways. Some are tipped with a highly maneuverable warhead called a hypersonic glide vehicle, such as China’s new Dongfeng-17 missile, or “east wind.”

The nuclear-armed Dongfeng-17 glider, designed to zig and zag and fly at harder-to-detect low altitudes when nearing its target, makes it even deadlier than China’s more conventional “carrier killer” ballistic missiles.

The U.S. also is racking up a wealth of analytical data in Ukraine that will help refine its missile capabilities in the future and give Beijing cause for concern at the same time, observers say.

“The Chinese can’t think about what they see today but have to think about the future, so the real concern for the PLA is likely what the Ukrainian war means for improving existing U.S. air defenses and developing next-generation missiles,” said Jan Kallberg, a former West Point professor and a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis think tank.

Improvements such as further refinements to the Patriot missile’s intercept algorithm will only make things worse, Kallberg told Newsweek, not least because the Chinese military’s arsenal includes so many systems based on Russian technology.

If China perceives a rising “superiority gap” between U.S. air defenses and Russian and Chinese missile technology, Beijing is likely to “do whatever it can” to restrict Taiwan’s general access to U.S. military tech, Kallberg said.

To do otherwise would mean a “bad start” to any attempt to take the island by force—an option successful Chinese leaders have refused to rule out.

Still, while Russia’s Kinzhal missiles might at times be found lacking, it is worth China’s while to study them. Launching the weapons from aircraft rather than from ground-based platforms could increase their lethality and reduce the probability of interception by a Patriot system.

Chins could apply precisely such a standoff launch strategy, for instance, by deploying H-6 bombers carrying more capable Dongfeng-21D anti-ship ballistic missiles or even its Dongfeng-17 hypersonic missile, according to Shu Hsiao-huang, an associate research fellow at Taiwan’s top military think tank, the Institute of National Defense and Security Research.

Just as the U.S. is drawing lessons for future wars fought with modern weaponry, China also will be gaining valuable intelligence on its arch-rival’s strengths and weaknesses—as well as how and when to use its own strategic advantages, including its growing hypersonic missile arsenal.

Although the latest Patriot system remains effective, “its range is limited and its firing height is insufficient,” Shu told Newsweek, “so it can only intercept at the end of the trajectory.”

China is surrounded by countries using Washington’s Patriot launchers, including Taiwan and U.S. treaty allies Japan and South Korea.

“China’s Dongfeng-17 will pose challenges to the Patriot system, including its flight altitude and special ballistics,” Shu said. However, the long-range missile might be better suited for attacking distant targets such as U.S. bases in Japan or Guam—critical to the country’s military posture in the region.

In the race for hypersonic weapons, China appears to be several steps ahead of the U.S. in research and development.

While the U.S. has yet to deploy a single one, China has already tested and deployed air-, land- and sea-based variants, which Beijing says give it anti-access and area denial capabilities to keep American forces at bay—for example, in a Taiwan Strait crisis.

However, such weapons have not yet been tested against moving enemy warships equipped with countermeasures. In addition, a hypersonic missile’s “kill chain,” which requires constant satellite updates, may be vulnerable to disruption.

Furnishing Ukraine with Patriot missiles was “an investment,” as it improved the system’s algorithm and boosted its overall effectiveness in other theaters, Kallberg said on social media earlier this month.

“Every Ukrainian downing of Russian hypersonic Kh-47M2 Kinzhal with the Patriot missiles will improve the Patriot missile intercept algorithm—and increase accuracy for all Patriot systems, a benefit for the U.S., the rest of NATO, and other Patriot [air defense[ users,” he said.