In future, other world powers will have similar hypersonic weapons technology: Vladimir Putin
Moscow:
Russia is the global leader in hypersonic missiles and by the time other countries catch up, it will likely have the technology developed to counter these new weapons, President Vladimir Putin said.
Russia and the United States have almost similarities, Putin said in remarks broadcast on Sunday as part of a documentary film titled “Russia. New History.”
“But in our advanced development, we are certainly the leader,” Putin said, adding that Russia is also No. 1 in the world in the scale of its conventional weapons upgrades.
The President said that in the future, other world powers will have similar hypersonic weapons technology.
“When they get this weapon, there’s a lot more potential to fight with this weapon.”
Putin said last month that testing of Russia’s Zircon hypersonic cruise missile was nearing completion and deliveries to the Navy would begin in 2022.
Some Western experts have questioned how advanced Russia’s new-generation weapons are, while noting that the combination of speed, maneuverability and altitude of hypersonic missiles makes them difficult to track and intercept.
They travel at more than five times the speed of sound in the upper atmosphere, or about 6,200 km per hour (3,850 mph). It is slower than an intercontinental ballistic missile, but the size of a hypersonic glide vehicle allows it to maneuver toward a target or away from defence.
Moscow’s military spending is much lower than Washington’s. According to World Bank data, Russia spent $62 billion on military spending in 2020, while the United States spent $778 billion.
US Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall told Reuters last month that the United States and China were engaged in an arms race to develop the deadliest hypersonic weapon.
In October, the top US military official, General Mark Milley, confirmed a Chinese hypersonic weapons test that military experts say illustrates Beijing’s discovery of an Earth-orbiting system designed to evade US missile defense.
Putin spoke about Russia’s military might in the same documentary film in which he called the collapse of the Soviet Union “historic Russia” three decades earlier.
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
,