MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Russia has got a strong edge in designing new weapons and that it has become the only country in the world to deploy hypersonic weapons. “Not a single country has hypersonic weapons, let alone hypersonic weapons of intercontinental range.”He said that the first unit equipped with the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle is set to go on duty this month, while the air-launched Kinzhal hypersonic missiles already have entered service. Putin first mentioned the Avangard and the Kinzhal among other prospective weapons systems in his state-of-the-nation address in March 2018. Putin said then that the Avangard has an intercontinental range and can fly in the atmosphere at a speed 20 times the speed of sound. The United States and other countries also have worked on designing hypersonic weapons, but they haven’t entered service yet.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer December 24, 2019 14:48 UTC