In a video conference with his Defence Minister, Sergei Shoigu, Putin confirmed the deployment of Zircon (Tsirkon) hypersonic weapons and added that a frigate has sailed into the Atlantic for a training mission

Photo Credit : Reuters,

Russian President Vladimir Putin dispatched the Northern Fleet frigate “Admiral Gorshkov” to the Atlantic and Indian Oceans on Wednesday, armed with new generation 3M22 Zircon (Tsirkon) or SS-N-33 missiles capable of flying at 30-40 km altitude with a payload of 300-400 kg and carrying nuclear or conventional warheads.

In a video conference with his Defence Minister, Sergei Shoigu, Putin confirmed the missile deployment. He said that a frigate has sailed into the Atlantic for a training mission equipped with Zircon (Tsirkon) hypersonic weapons.

Putin described the missiles as “unique in the world” as Moscow sought to gain an advantage over its Western adversaries during Ukraine's ongoing military intervention. The Russian Defence Ministry ordered dozens of additional 3M22 Tsirkon hypersonic missiles, with delivery scheduled for the end of 2023.

The first contract was signed in 2021 to supply the batch of Zircon or Tsirkons, and the shipborne test fire began from an underwater carrier, the nuclear-powered submarine Severodvinsk. It is built at the 3K-22 (Tsirkon code) complex in Reutov, Moscow region, by the Research and Production Association of Machine-Building.

The Russian Navy is planning to arm all new and modernised surface ships and nuclear-powered submarines, including Project 22350 and Project 22350M frigates, the heavy nuclear-powered missile cruisers Admiral Nakhimov and Pyotr Veliky, Yasen-class submarines, and Lider-class nuclear-powered destroyers, with Tsirkon hypersonic missiles by 2023, according to a military source in the defence.

“The Zircon is the world’s first hypersonic cruise missile capable of long-range aerodynamic flight with manoeuvring in the atmosphere using the thrust of its own engine,” the Russian Ministry of Defence said in a statement

According to the sources, it can destroy both ships and ground targets and has a maximum speed of nine sound speeds and a maximum firing range of 1,000 kilometres.

The world's fastest missile?

Zircon's initial tests last year demonstrated that it could travel at speeds of up to 6,600 mph and hit targets up to 1,000 kilometres away. In April 2017, Russia claimed that Zircon had reached Mach 8 during a test, implying that this missile would be the fastest in the world and nearly impossible to defend due to its plasma cloud and speed.

Zircon's first official test launch took place in October 2020, and it flew at Mach 9 to hit targets on land and at sea. The Admiral Gorchkov frigate and a submerged submarine armed with 3M22 Zircon were tested in the Russian Arctic in October 2020.

The US has been racing Russia and China to match the manoeuvrability of ballistic missiles, which launch hypersonic glide vehicles seven to eight times faster than the speed of sound at 3,800 mph (6,100 kph) before hitting the target.

The US intends to instal it on three Zumwalt-class destroyers. Although, US House Representative, Jim Cooper, a Tennessee Democrat who chairs a subcommittee that oversees the programme, admitted earlier that Washington is “straining just to catch up” due to gaps in new technology investments, and that only a fraction of the 10,000 people who worked on the programme in the 1980s are still working on it today.

The Russian president said that such powerful weapons “will make it possible to protect Russia from potential external threats reliably and will help ensure our country's national interests,” briefly referring to the West as “unfriendly countries.” I wish the crew of the shipping success in their service for the good of the Motherland, Putin said in a video message posted on the Kremlin’s official website.