The Russian military on Saturday has made an announcement about a recent test of their Zircon hypersonic cruise missile as Moscow speeds up its Ukraine offensive.
The missile was shot from the Admiral Gorshkov frigate that was stationed in the Barents Sea & “successfully hit” a target which was stationed 1,000 kilometres (625 miles) away in the White Sea in the Arctic, the defence ministry said.
The ministry has mentioned that the test was undertaken as a part of the currently ongoing “testing of new weapons.”
The officially first Zircon test, which President Vladimir Putin has explained as a “great event,” which came in October 2020. After other tests, from the same frigate & from a submerged submarine.
The recent test of a hypersonic weapon comes as Russia looks to be making ground in its offensive launched in Ukraine in late February.
The weapon can reach speeds of between five & ten times the speed of sound and has a maximum range of around 1,000 kilometres.
In March, Moscow has added that it had used for the first time in combat its high-precision Kinzhal, or dagger, hypersonic missile.
Putin has described the missiles as a family of new “invincible” arms in Russia’s arsenal.
The new generation weaponry, unveiled by Putin in 2018, are more difficult to track and intercept by missile defence systems than conventional weapons, owing to their speed but also as they are launched at lower altitude towards their target.