‘We’ll pleasantly surprise them’: Russia will be able to counter hypersonic weapons once others develop them, Putin pledges

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14 June 2020

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Other nations are hastily designing their own hypersonic weapons – but by the time they are acquired, the Russian military will have learned how to shield the country from them, President Vladimir Putin said.

The world’s leading military powers will eventually succeed in developing the ultra-fast weapons, President Vladimir Putin told Russia-1 TV. Russia, meanwhile, which seems to be leading the race for hypersonic dominance, won’t be caught off-guard once that happens, he pledged.

I think that we can pleasantly surprise our partners with the fact that when they get these weapons, we will have the means of combating them, with a high degree of probability.

Other countries, including the US and China, have their own projects to build hypersonic weapons capable of travelling several times faster than the speed of sound.

The US president just recently teased a new “super-duper” missile, which he claimed could be 17 times faster than the speed of sound.

Russia appears to be the first nation in the world to have deployed a similar-class weapon – the Avangard glide vehicle – into service. Others munitions, like the Kinzhal (dagger) cruise missile and the Zircon anti-ship missile, are undergoing trials or said to be in the works now.

Apart from offensive weapons, Russia has recently rolled out a radar station – which happens to be the latest addition to the Protivnik (adversary) family – designed to track over a thousand fast-moving targets, including those that are hypersonic.

Russia: Watch FIRST-EVER public test launch of Russia’s Avangard hypersonic glider

Putin has stated before that the US is playing catch-up with Russia for the first time in history. Obtaining hypersonic weapons was crucial to maintaining parity with the US, which has repeatedly tried to tilt the strategic balance by building ballistic missile shields not only on American soil, but also overseas, most notably in Eastern Europe and the Asia-Pacific.

However, these facilities are becoming obsolete since the hypersonic systems can easily pierce any existing missile defenses, President Putin said in March, adding, “it is essential not only for us, but also for global security."