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Russia boasts third successful test of its 6,000MPH hypersonic Zircon missile hours after staging nuke war games
RUSSIA has boasted of a third successful test of its 6,000mph hypersonic Zircon missile hours after staging nuclear war games.
The new-age weapon has been identified by Moscow’s state-controlled TV as Vladimir Putin’s "weapon of choice" to wipe out American cities in the event of a full-scale conflict.
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The Kremlin leader has called the Mach 8 Zircon "truly unparalleled… in the world".
It is said to travel faster than the speed of sound, making it too quick for US and UK anti-missile systems.
Footage released on Friday shows the hypersonic missile being fired from the Admiral Gorshkov in the White Sea.
The missile hit a target 217 miles away at the Chizha training ground in the Arkhangelsk Region some two minutes after it was launched.
Zircon missiles - also known as Tsirkon - have been in development for more than 20 years and are considered a key next step for Putin's arsenal.
The first test launch of the missile from the Gorshkov was staged in early October, which was seen as a 68th birthday present for Putin.
Putin praised the successful test as a big event for Russia.
"Equipping our Armed Forces the army and the navy with the latest, truly unparalleled weapon systems will certainly ensure the defence capability of our country in the long term," the president said at the time.
It was followed by a test in November, which "successfully" hit a dummy target in the Barents Sea 280 miles away, the Kremlin claimed.
Dmitry Kiselyov, presenter of Russia’s main weekly TV news show Vesti Nedeli, last year showed a map of the US identifying the targets he claimed Moscow would want to hit in a nuclear war.
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Kiselyov, seen as a top Putin propagandist, said the Zircon missile could hit the targets in less than five minutes.
Putin warned this year that the West is seeking to steal secrets relating to Zircon and other state-of-the-art Russian weapons such as the Avangard.
It comes hours after footage showed missiles launched as part of a major nuclear war games exercise reportedly conducted under the command of Putin.
The sweeping drills involved all three legs of the Russian nuclear triad, with nuclear-capable missiles deployed from submarine, land and strategic aircraft, said the country’s defence ministry.
The war games come less than two months before the New START US-Russian arms control treaty expires in early February.
Moscow and Washington have discussed extending the pact, but differences have remained.
New START was signed in 2010 by then-U.S. President Barack Obama and then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
It limits each country to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers, and envisages sweeping on-site inspections to verify compliance.
Meanwhile, the expansion continues of the Sevmash shipyard, a major White Sea shipbuilding enterprise tasked with modernising Russia’s nuclear fleet.
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Sevmash is the only Russian shipyard capable of building nuclear powered submarines.
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Its expansion is linked to a major modernisation of the country’s underwater fleet, with many new vessels to be produced in the next ten years.
The company's workforce now stands at 30,000, having increased by more than 3,000 in less than a decade.
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