The Kindzal missiles are part of a new series of hypersonic weapons that President Vladimir Putin revealed in a 2018 speech in which he said the missiles could strike almost anywhere in the world and evade a US-made missile shield.
Speaking on state television, Sogo said the missiles had proven effective in hitting high-value targets on all three occasions, and claimed they were nearly impossible to shoot down in flight.
“We published it three times during the special military operation and three times it showed great qualities,” Soigo told Reuters in an interview broadcast on Rossiya 1 channel. Report to me
Russia first deployed the Kinzhal system in Ukraine about a month after sending tens of thousands of troops into its neighbor’s territory and striking a large arms depot in the Ivano-Frankivsk region of western Ukraine.
This week, the Russian Defense Ministry announce Three MiG-31E combat aircraft equipped with Kindzal missiles have been flown to the Kaliningrad region, Russia’s cut-off on the Baltic Sea coast between Poland and Lithuania, member states of NATO and the European Union. The missile, which is installed on MiG-31 aircraft, has a range of 2,000 km, its maximum speed can exceed five times the speed of sound and reach 12,000 km / h.
Hypersonic missiles have better maneuverability than ballistic missiles and, due to their lower flight, are more difficult for air defenses to detect and destroy.
Late last month, on Russian Navy Day, President Vladimir Putin announced that the Navy would receive what he called “fantastic” hypersonic Zircon cruise missiles in the coming months. These missiles can travel at over nine times the speed of sound.
Cover image source: Sefa Karacan / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
