“Patriot” damaged in Ukraine

Again and again in the Ukraine war, social media influence the course of the war. Now the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense is taking action.

KIEV – After damaging one of the Patriot anti-aircraft systems vital to Ukraine’s air defense, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry has blamed military bloggers in the country for the incident. The ministry called on those affected to show public remorse because of the distribution of film footage. This was reported on Wednesday (May 17) by, among others dpa.

As a result, the well-known military blogger Inna Voronova had to publicly ask for forgiveness in a video distributed by the Ukrainian secret service SBU. Voronova previously apologized of her own accord on her own Instagram account for posting a video that Russia may have given clues as to the location of the damaged Patriot system. In addition to her, a total of six bloggers are accused of serious betrayal of secrets. Prison sentences of up to eight years would be possible.

Ukraine accuses bloggers of “participation” in Russian attack on Patriot system

The bloggers’ carelessness is said to have led to a targeted attack on a US Patriot system in Kiev on Tuesday. According to Ukrainian sources, all six attacking missiles were destroyed in the attack, but sources in the USA subsequently reported that at least one launcher at the militarily important facility was damaged.

Ukrainian authorities have now defused the American report, reiterating that the Patriot system is “up and running” and “everything is fine,” according to the news agency AFP quoted a spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force. The spokesman did not confirm that the state-of-the-art air defense system had actually been damaged beforehand.

Attack on Kiev in the Ukraine war: Russia denies firing its “miracle weapon”

Russia, however, denied that six hypersonic missiles had been shot down in the attack on the air defense system. The Ministry of Defense under Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that the Russian armed forces had hit the anti-aircraft system with a Kinzhal-type hypersonic missile. Russian President Vladimir Putin had previously touted this as “invincible” and a kind of silver bullet.

Ukraine had long struggled over the supply of modern western weapons and defense systems during the winter. In April, the country received the first delivery of the US-made systems from its western allies. The modern weapon system is used to combat larger targets in the air such as airplanes, drones, rockets and cruise missiles. (saka with dpa/AFP)