MOSCOW: Russia said Sunday it successfully launched a hypersonic missile which President Vladimir Putin called “an ideal weapon” as he unveiled a new array of next-generation arms earlier this month.
The high-precision Kinzhal (Dagger) missile was launched from a MiG-31 supersonic interceptor jet that took off from an airfield in the South Military District in Russia’s southwest, the defense ministry said.
“The launch went according to plan, the hypersonic missile hit its target,” the ministry added.
The ministry released video footage showing two pilots gearing up for a flight and then running toward a jet with a large missile slung beneath its underbelly.
Set to rousing, patriotic music, the video then shows a missile detaching from the airborne plane and gliding across the dark sky, leaving a fiery trail behind.
The Kinzhal missile was one of an array of new weapons Putin unveiled in his state-of-the-nation address earlier this month, ahead of a presidential election on March 18 that he is all but guaranteed to win.
Putin said the missile flies at 10 times the speed of the sound and can overcome air-defense systems.
The missile has been deployed in the Southern Military District since December 1, he added.
Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin said on Facebook that work had also been done to modernize the “unique” MiG-31 supersonic jet that will carry the missile.
Since the start of the year, more than 250 sorties have been carried out by the aircraft to perfect the work of the missile systems, the defense ministry said.
Russia test-fires ‘ideal’ hypersonic missile
Russia test-fires ‘ideal’ hypersonic missile
Russia says the West should stop claiming Moscow and Beijing threaten Greenland
- “First they came up with the idea that there were some aggressors,” Zakharova said
- “We stand in solidarity with China’s position”
MOSCOW: Russia said on Thursday that its was unacceptable for the West to keep claiming that Russia and China threatened Greenland, and said the crisis over the territory showed the inconsistency of the West’s implementation of the so-called “rules-based” order.
“First they came up with the idea that there were some aggressors, and then that they were ready to protect someone from these aggressors,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said of the West’s actions on Greenland.
The current situation, she said, “demonstrates with particular acuteness the inconsistency of the so-called ‘rules-based world order’ being built by the West,” Zakharova said.
“We stand in solidarity with China’s position on the unacceptability of references to certain activity of Russia and China around Greenland as a reason for the current escalation,” Zakharova said.
