Kyiv posts images of ‘downed’ Russian hypersonic missile; Chechen leader demands return of family

Ukraine released images on Friday of what it said was a Russian Kinzhal ballistic missile, which it claimed earlier in the week to have downed using the US Patriot anti-aircraft system.

Its state emergency service published photographs on its Telegram channel showing a crane extracting the remains of a missile from the ground.

“In Kyiv, engineers neutralised the warhead of an enemy Kinzhal aerial hypersonic missile,” the government department said.

Agence France-Presse was not able to immediately verify the claim.

Ukraine said on Tuesday it had shot down 10 Kinzhal missiles Russia fired at the country, during a wave of massive strikes on Ukrainian towns that left six people dead.

Kinzhal missiles make up part of an arsenal of weapons that Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed were indestructible because of the speed at which they travel, up to 10 times the speed of sound.

According to the British defence ministry, Moscow reserves these warheads for what it considers to be “high-value and well-defended” targets.

Kyiv has repeatedly said the Patriot air defence system is vital to defending the country from Russia.

Kyiv has urged for more Western military support, worrying about war fatigue in some countries as the conflict drags on for almost two years.

Chechnya’s leader Ramzan Kadyrov in Abu Dhabi on December 6. Photo: AFP

Also on Friday, Chechen ruler Ramzan Kadyrov demanded the lifting of international sanctions on his family in return for the release of 20 Ukrainian prisoners of war.

Chechen soldiers captured the Ukrainians during fighting in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Kadyrov said on Friday, according to Russian media reports.

He showed a video in Chechnya’s capital Grozny in which these Ukrainians allegedly also pleaded for an exchange under the conditions he had mentioned.

The Chechen leader said the punitive measures imposed on his mother, his daughters and his horses should be lifted. “Even if there are some more sanctions on me, we will still release these people,” he said.

Kadyrov is one of the closest henchmen of Putin. Moscow therefore allows him to get away with tyranny and autocratic behaviour in his home country, a republic of Russia close to the Caspian Sea.

According to the Geneva Convention, Kadyrov is not allowed to treat the Ukrainian prisoners of war as his private prisoners and is also not allowed to show them on video. He is also not authorised to negotiate.

The European Union and the United States have imposed entry bans on Kadyrov and his family and frozen any assets on their territory.

In the Czech Republic, a valuable horse was confiscated that is said to belong to Kadyrov and disappeared under mysterious circumstances in 2023.

Shalanda Young, director of the US Office of Management and Budget. Photo: AP

Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden’s top budget official warned in stark terms on Friday about the rapidly diminishing time that lawmakers have to replenish US aid for Ukraine, as the fate of that money to Kyiv remains tied up in negotiations over immigration where a deal has so far been out of reach.

Shalanda Young, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, stressed that there is no avenue to help Ukraine aside from Congress approving additional funding to help Kyiv as it fends off Russia in a war that is now nearly two years old.

While the Pentagon has some limited authority to help Kyiv absent new funding from Capitol Hill, “that is not going to get big tranches of equipment” into Ukraine, Young said on Friday.

While the administration still has presidential drawdown authority, which allows it to pull weapons from existing US stockpiles and send them quickly to Ukraine, officials have decided to forgo that authority because Congress has not approved additional money to essentially backfill that equipment – a move that Young said was a “very tough” decision.

The US sent a US$250 million weapons package to Ukraine late last month, which officials say was likely to be the last package because of the lack of funding.

Young also detailed the impact that a lack of additional US aid would have on Ukraine aside from its military capabilities, such as Kyiv being able to pay its civil servants to ensure that its government can continue to function amid Russia’s barrage.

“I’m very concerned that it’s not just the United States’ resources that are necessary for Kyiv to stop Putin […] what message does that send to the rest of the world? And what will their decisions be if they see the United States not step up to the plate?” Young said during a breakfast with journalists on Friday hosted by the Christian Science Monitor news organisation.

Young, a veteran of the congressional budget office, said the situation was “dire” and “certainly, we’ve bypassed my comfort level” in the time that has gone by since Congress approved new funding for Ukraine.

Biden requested a smaller tranche of new aid to Ukraine in September, but then went to Congress with a sweeping national security spending request in late October that included roughly US$60 billion in new funding for Ukraine.

Asked whether the emergency spending request with Ukraine should pass before legislation to fund the government, Young said: “I’ll take it however they can pass it. I mean, beggars shouldn’t be choosing. And I’ll take it, how they can pass it. It just needs to be passed.”

Additional reporting by Associated Press, dpa