Another Ukrainian Portable Missile Brings Down a Russian Cruise Missile

In the third reported incident of its kind, two of which occurred on Sunday, Nov. 17, a Ukrainian mobile fire group from the Zhytomyr air defense detachment of the National Guard claimed to have brought down a Russian Kh-101 cruise missile using the 9K38 Igla (NATO: SA-18 Grouse) man-portable air defense system (MANPADS) launcher.

Kyiv Post previously reported how Natalia Hrabarchuk, a former kindergarten teacher now a volunteer member in Ukraine’s Western Air Command air defense forces managed the same trick against the same type of missile used on Sunday with her first ever “live” engagement.

In a video posted on its Telegram channel on Monday we see an unnamed MANPADS operator from the national guard mobile fire group standing ready in a field somewhere in the Kyiv region.

We then hear the unmistakable sound of the cruise missile, which the camera operator locates in the sky as it passes overhead.

A member of the team shouts out, “There it is!” The operator reacts and launches his 9M39 heat-seeking missile. The video follows the smoke trail from as it races after the disappearing Kh-101.

The video ends before the moment of impact but the national guard claims it did bring the missile down.

This is the third reported success of the Igla MANPADS against Kh-101 cruise missiles claimed by Ukraine’s air defense forces. As Kyiv Post previously reported a National Guard trooper also brought down a Kh-101, using the same MANPADS, in May 2023 near Bucha in the Kyiv region.

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The Kremlin defended the policy changes as a necessary response to perceived “Western threats,” where the use of Western non-nuclear missiles can potentially lead to Moscow’s nuclear response.

Overnight on Nov. 16-17, Russia launched a massive, combined missile and attack drone assault on Ukraine’s energy sector facilities involving a total of over 200 projectiles: 120 missiles and 90 Shahed and other unidentified UAVs.

According to details of the attack published on Monday by the Ukrainian Air Force, it involved more than 40 Russian aircraft including 7 Tu-160, 2 Tu-22M3 and 16 Tu-95MS strategic bombers, 5 Su-34 fighter-bombers, 4 Su-27 fighters, and 10 MiG-31K fighters.

These launched just about every type of air launched missile held by Moscow’s aerospace forces including: 1 3M22 “Tsirkon” and 8 Kh-47M2 “Kinzhal” hypersonic missiles,101 Kh-101 cruise missiles, 1 Iskander-M ballistic missile, 4 Kh-22/Kh-31P cruise missiles, 5 Kh-59/Kh-69 guided air missiles along with 90 attack UAVs/drones.

Ukrainian static and mobile air defense assets engaged incoming missiles in almost every region of Ukraine, including: Kyiv, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Poltava, Odesa, Mykolaiv, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia, Khmelnytsky, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk, Rivne, Volyn and Lviv regions. The Ukrainian Air Force reported it had shot down 102 Russian missiles along with 42 drones and another 41 “lost” after being disrupted by electronic warfare countermeasures.