Kinzhal missiles and Avangard nuclear gliders make Russia stronger and safer, the president has said
FILE PHOTO: A MiG-31 fighter jet armed with a Kinzhal hypersonic missile. © Sputnik / Aleksey Nikolskyi
Moscow’s plans to deploy new, advanced weaponry, first revealed in 2018, have been realized or are in completion phases, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a keynote speech on Thursday.
Russian troops have already used the Kinzhal and Tsirkon hypersonic missiles in combat, hitting high-value Ukrainian military targets, Putin said, in an address to the Federal Assembly.
The strategic hypersonic gliders Avangard and the laser system Peresvet are in service, the Russian leader said. A hypersonic glider is a vehicle usually designed for delivering a nuclear device. It can travel through the atmosphere at high altitude and great speed, and can maneuver to avoid interception.
Moscow will soon release footage of heavy strategic intercontinental ballistic Sarmat missiles in their silos, the president promised. Trials of the nuclear-powered, unlimited-range cruise missile Burevestnik and of the nuclear-capable underwater drone Poseidon are close to finishing, he also said.
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“Those systems have confirmed their high – unique, I might say without exaggeration – specifications,” Putin said of the weapon systems.
All of the new arms, with the exception of the Tsirkon missile, were first revealed by the Russian president during a March 2018 address to the Federal Assembly.
Then, Putin described them as a response to US attempts to disrupt the strategic balance with Russia in its favor. Speaking on Thursday, he said Moscow remained willing to negotiate on the issue with Washington, but stressed that the countries’ relationship has since seriously deteriorated.
”We are dealing with a state whose ruling elites are openly taking hostile actions against us,” he said. “Do they seriously intend to discuss strategic stability with us while trying to inflict ‘strategic defeat on the battlefield,’ as they put it themselves, on Russia?”
He described Washington’s diplomatic stance as “hypocritical” and just a means to deliver outcomes that “are beneficiary only to the US.”
READ MORE: Putin delivers key address to Russian lawmakers: LIVE UPDATES
