Arms race

Putin teases new arms: Lasers & hypersonic missiles in service, but ‘that’s not all’

All the recently unveiled cutting-edge Russian weapons will be put into service in time, while some are already adopted, President Vladimir Putin said during his annual Q&A session in Moscow, teasing more surprises to come.

“The hypersonic air-deployed Kinzhal system – the missile which can travel at 10 Mach speed – is already used by our troops in the South Federal District,” Putin said. “A laser combat system is in service as well.”

Two other novelties – the hypersonic Avangard system and Sarmat ICBM – will be put into service in 2019 and 2020 respectively. The Avangard hypersonic glider system, which can exceed the speed of sound 20 times during final approach, has been already put into serial production, the president revealed.

“I don’t think that any other country will develop such weapon [as Avangard]. Naturally, it will emerge at some point, but, as I’ve said already, it won’t bother us, since we already have it,” he said.

The nuclear powered weapon systems – drone submarine and cruise missile of global range – will be put into service “on schedule,” Putin said, adding that he had “no doubts” about this as the propulsion systems have been already developed and successfully tested.

But the Russian military has more aces up their sleeve, the president hinted, promising cutting-edge weaponry to be unveiled “soon,” without giving any details. “That’s not all that we are planning to produce and adopt,” Putin said. “We’ll talk about it soon.”