Russian Statements on New Cruise Missile Indicate First Strike Intentions

Russian President Vladimir Putin / Getty Images

 

Putin highlights new hypersonic cruise missile in state of the nation address

KIEV, Ukraine—News reports from Russian media over the weekend indicate that the hypersonic cruise missile highlighted in President Vladimir Putin’s Feb. 20 state of the nation address is being contemplated for use in a first strike against targets in the continental United States.

Putin: Russia has enough missiles without violating treaty

Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with the top military staff in the Russian Defense Ministry’s headquarters in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2018. Putin said that new Russian weapons have no foreign equivalents, helping ensure the nation’s security for decades to come. (Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

 

MOSCOW (AP) — President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday rejected the U.S. claim that Russia developed a new cruise missile in violation of a key nuclear treaty, arguing that Russia has no need for such a land-based weapon because it already has similar missiles on its ships and aircraft.

Washington warned this month it would suspend its obligations under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) in 60 days if Russia did not return to full compliance. The U.S. claims the 9M729 cruise missile breaches the INF, which bans all land-based cruise and ballistic missiles with a range of 500 to 5,500 kilometers (300 to 3,400 miles.)

Pentagon: U.S. Lacks ‘Adequate’ Defense Against Hypersonic Weapons

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DOD will request more funding to develop lasers, other weapons

The United States is not equipped to combat Chinese or Russian hypersonic weapons that have the capacity to overwhelm American missile-defense systems, according to a senior Pentagon official.

Michael Griffin, the under secretary of defense for research and engineering, said Tuesday the Pentagon has not deployed “adequate” defenses against the highly maneuverable and difficult-to-detect weapons being aggressively pursued by U.S. adversaries.

Russia’s ‘US Missile Defense-Killing’ Hypersonic Rockets Arriving Soon

A hypersonic missile design displayed at an exhibition staged by the Raduga Design Bureau. Image courtesy Sergey Mamontov and Sputnik.

 

Russian defense analyst Vladimir Tuchkov analyses Russian, Chinese and American developments in hypersonic weapons technology, including the expected timeframe for their deployment, which is sooner than you may expect.

Last week, Tactical Missile Systems Corporation general director Boris Obnosov told Russian media that he was confident that Russia would be introducing hypersonic missiles capable of speeds between Mach 6 and Mach 7 by the year 2020.

The director emphasized that such weapons would significantly weaken the potential of enemy missile defense. “It’s obvious that with such speeds – when missiles will be capable of flying through the atmosphere at speeds of 7-12 times the speed of sound, all [air] defense systems will be weakened considerably.”