When the Kremlin says something, it should always be taken with a grain of salt.

When it says something about its military prowess, one should take the claim with an entire salt mine.

For years, Russia’s Kinzhal missile was portrayed by the Kremlin’s propaganda machine as an invincible, cutting-edge hypersonic weapon, symbolizing Russia’s supremacy in advanced military tech.

The realities of the battlefield, however, have shown the true capabilities of the missile, also known as Kh-47M2.

The Ukrainian military successfully intercepted the first Kinzhal with the advanced Western-provided Patriot air defense system in May. As Ukrainian authorities showed the debris of the destroyed Kinzhal, Russia’s propaganda myth about its invincibility crumbled.

The Kinzhal was never a truly hypersonic weapon – a supposedly advanced military technology that the United States and China spent years developing, but that has yielded minimal results.

Behind years of Russia’s propagandistic bravado, the Kinzhal was, in essence, closer to a ballistic missile Iskander that was adapted for being launched from supersonic aircraft, something Western arms experts repeatedly stated.

The “invincible” Kinzhal’s failure to the U.S.-made Patriot in Ukraine is just the latest episode of the Kremlin’s humiliation, as the whole world was watching.

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin introduced the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal (“Dagger”) during an address to Russia’s parliament in early 2018.

Putin presented it as a full-fledged hypersonic missile system that is capable of reaching a  Mach 10 (roughly 10 times the speed of sound or up to some 12,000 kilometers per hour).

Putin went as far as to call the Kinzhal “the ideal weapon” that “all of the world’s leading militaries want to have.”

Also, according to Putin, the Kinzhal can maneuver along its flight path toward its target, rendering it impossible to intercept by any of the world’s operational air and missile defense systems.

The Soviet-made Mikoyan MiG-31, one of the fastest jets ever produced, in the MiG-31K (the K being for Kinzhal) modification is the Kinzhal’s primary carrier.

According to the Russians, the Tu-22M3M and Tu-160 strategic bombers can also carry Kinzhals, potentially along with the Sukhoi Su-57, a handful of which Russia has in limited service.

Each MiG-31K can carry just one Kinzhal missile at a time.

It works in roughly the following way: A MiG-31K takes an altitude of some 15 kilometers and reaches the supersonic speed of some Mach 2.8. The aircraft then launches the missile from the stratosphere for reduced air resistance, which serves as a booster.

According to the Russians, the missile gains an altitude of 20 kilometers and follows a quasi-ballistic flight path at the speed of Mach 10, which allegedly makes it too fast and too maneuverable to detect, predict its path, and impossible to intercept.

The “invincible” hypersonic Kinzhal, according to the Russians, with the use of the MiG-31K, has an operational range of some 2,000 kilometers and can carry a nuclear warhead.

The Kremlin invested a lot into propaganda that portrayed Russia as the sole leader in hypersonic technology and, moreover, as the first military power to ever use hypersonic weapons in combat.