Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday (4) that tests of the Russian Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missile are almost completed and deliveries to the Russian navy will begin in 2022.
The move is part of an attempt by Moscow to advance the arms race with the United States and other countries to deploy the next generation of long-range weapons that are harder to detect and intercept.
Last month, Russia said it had successfully tested a Tsirkon missile launch from a submarine for the first time.
Weapons to “further strengthen” the country’s security
According to the Russian president, the weapons are to “further strengthen” the country’s security and combat possible military threats.
“It is now especially important to develop and implement the technologies needed to create new hypersonic weapons systems, high-powered lasers and robotic systems that will be able to effectively combat potential military threats, which means they will further strengthen our country’s security.” , he said.
Putin further revealed that during testing the missile successfully hit land and sea targets when fired from underwater or from surface ships.
Some Western experts have questioned the degree of advancement of the new generation of Russian weapons, while acknowledging that the combination of speed, maneuverability and altitude of hypersonic missiles makes them difficult to track and intercept.
How Hypersonic Missiles Work
Hypersonic missiles travel at more than five times the speed of sound in the high atmosphere, that is, at about 6,200 kilometers per hour.
These weapons are slower than an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), but the hypersonic gliding vehicle’s shape allows it to maneuver toward a target or away from defenses.
Combining a glider vehicle with a missile that can partially put it into orbit – the so-called fractional orbital bombing system (FOBS) – can deprive opponents of reaction time and traditional defense mechanisms.
ICBMs, on the other hand, carry nuclear warheads on ballistic trajectories that travel into space but never reach orbit.
Both the United States and the Soviet Union studied FOBS during the Cold War, and the USSR implemented this system in the early 1970s.
It was taken out of service in the mid-1980s. Submarine-launched ballistic missiles had many of the advantages of FOBS – reducing detection time and making it impossible to know where an attack would come from – and were considered less destabilizing than FOBS.
Who leads the hypersonic missile arms race
The British newspaper Financial Times reported in October that China had launched a rocket carrying a hypersonic glider vehicle that flew through space, circling the globe before descending towards its target.
In July, Russia successfully tested a Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missile, which Putin praised as part of a new generation of missile systems. Moscow also tested a submarine weapon for the first time – and there was another test in October.
The United States said in late September that it had tested a hypersonic weapon that sustains flight by itself through the atmosphere like a cruise missile – marking the first successful test of this weapon class since 2013.
The State Department said in October, after another test failed, that it wanted defense contractors to reduce the ultimate cost of hypersonic weapons, since high-speed missiles currently in development cost tens of millions per unit.
Days after the US announcement, North Korea fired a newly developed hypersonic missile, calling it a “strategic weapon” that boosted its defense capabilities, although some South Korean analysts called the test a “failure” .
Or that represents an arms race
The recent tests are the moves of a dangerous arms race in which smaller Asian nations are struggling to develop advanced long-range missiles alongside major military powers.
Hypersonic weapons and FOBS could be a cause for concern, as they could potentially evade missile shields and early warning systems.
Some experts warned of the importance of missiles like the one China tested in August.
“China already has about 100 nuclear-armed ICBMs that could hit the United States,” said Jeffrey Lewis, a missile expert at the US-based James Martin Center for Non-Proliferation Studies.
(This text is a translation. To read the original, in Spanish, click here)
Reference: CNN Brasil

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