To Russia's war now.
And Ukraine says it used
the US made Patriot
air defense system to intercept
a Russian hypersonic missile.
Yeah, this is the first time
the newly acquired system
has been used to take down
one of Moscow's most modern missiles.
CNN's Sam Kiley
joining us now live from Kiev.
Sam, I mean, this sounds
pretty significant,
like a big win for Ukraine.
A really big win
or an act of exceptional marksmanship
using a very sophisticated piece
of weaponry.
All luck and I think that the developers
of the Patriot missile systems,
I mean, particularly the United States
and the Pentagon,
will be looking
at this incident
in detail to try to establish
which of those three things it was,
because this is a missile system
and anti-missile missile system
that was developed to take out missiles
that predate
the hypersonic
missile that the Kinzel that the Russians
have been using occasionally in Ukraine.
This is a missile
that the Russians claim can fly
at ten times
the speed of sound
in technical terms,
too fast for the Patriot.
But the Ukrainians are saying
that they did successfully shoot
one down now.
They're very short
indeed of Patriot missile systems.
They say they're very short
indeed of all forms of aerial defenses.
So this has been a major morale booster
for the Ukrainians.
And it also represents,
from the Russian perspective,
a bit
of a slap in the face in that
they did assume
that these kinds of missiles,
although they don't have a large numbers
of them, were pretty invulnerable.
Now they will have to take
extra precautions
to protect those missiles
that they have been firing.
Into this country,
and they fire them at a time
when they try to overwhelm
the systems here
with other missiles
and drones from the very primitive
Iranian made showerhead drones
all the way through to the Russian made
cruise missile systems.
They fight fire swarms of these things.
And then on top of them, fire
these hypersonic missiles.
So it is a significant step
for the Ukrainians,
but we don't really know
the technical detail whether or not
it was basically a lucky shot.
Yeah, still some some questions there.
Sam, what do you know about
Russian officials
evacuating civilians
in this area of the region?
This is ahead of an expected counter
offensive.
The UN's nuclear watchdog
says they're closely monitoring.
What do you know
Well, Victor, we know from at
least we know that there are claims
of these evacuations
circulating on social media
and being made by the exiled
Ukrainian leadership,
particularly of the town of Melita Paul,
which is a very important town
to the south of Zakariya
the town of Zakariya,
which is still in Ukrainian hands,
and the Zakariya
nuclear power station,
which is in Russian
hands, essentially multiple,
has been a bit of a hotbed
of partizan activity on social media.
There has been
images of very large queues of vehicles
leaving the city.
They've also been
reports coming
from even Russian officials
of other towns
being evacuated closer to the front lines
in anticipation
of a Ukrainian offensive along that
very long
front line
there in LA
that essentially runs East-West
from Aparecida
all the way through to north of Mariupol,
which, of course
was flattened by the Russians
when they captured it last year.
This is seen as as preparations
being made
by the civilian and Russian
authorities in the south of the country
that they've captured
at the beginning of this war
ahead of a Russian
sorry, Ukrainian offensive in the summer.
The assumption is
that they will be attacking in the south.
But of course,
the Ukrainians
are also
being trained
by naito in maneuver warfare and feints
and fake attacks
will be very much part
of any future offensive
that they do conduct
All right.
Sam Kiley, appreciate your reporting
as always. Thank you.