Western air defense systems could shoot down Russia’s new missile despite Putin’s claims, analyst says.

Western air defense systems would be able to shoot down warheads from Russia’s new missile, casting doubt on President Vladimir Putin’s claims that it “cannot be intercepted.” However, Ukraine does not currently possess those air defense systems.

In televised comments Friday, Putin claimed the hypersonic ballistic missile known as Oreshnik — fired for the first time at Ukraine on Thursday — could not be intercepted by air defenses. “There are currently no means of countering such a missile, no means of intercepting it, in the world,” Putin said.

But Fabian Hoffmann, a doctoral research fellow at the Oslo Nuclear Project, said various American and Israeli-made anti-missile systems would be able to shoot down the multiple warheads.

“Systems like SM-3 from Aegis or Aegis Ashore, as well as most likely Arrow 3 and THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) can absolutely deal with this type of threat,” Hoffmann said.

Because the Oreshnik missile fires multiple warheads at once, Hoffmann explained it would require “a large number of interceptors to shoot them down,” which is extremely expensive.

“Cost efficiency is a bigger issue than the act of intercepting them,” he said.

Kyiv’s Western allies have not provided Ukraine with the systems capable of defending against an Oreshnik missile strike. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that Ukraine is holding meetings with its allies about developing “new air defense systems” in response to the new threat from Russia.