Russia Successfully Tests the Hypersonic Missile “Avangard”. The U.S.: In a War We Would Win

By Boyko Nikolov On Jan 3, 2019

MOSCOW, Russia (BulgarianMilitary.com) – During Christmas and New Year holidays, Russia has conducted successful tests of the latest “Avangard” missile system that can carry nuclear and conventional warheads, learned BulgarianMilitary.com

The tests were personally observed by President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, from the building of the Defence Ministry in Moscow, and the Kremlin administration described the test as “the missile was launched from a location in south-west Russia and successfully hit and destroyed a target in the Russian Far East.”

“This test, which has just finished, ended with complete success,” Putin commented during a government meeting.

We recall that just two months ago, the U.S. television channel CNBC, citing U.S. intelligence sources, said Russia could not start production of the hypersonic weapon because Kremlin had failed to obtain critical components, including carbon fiber component, without which the missile could not function.

According to the U.S. intelligence, the body of the hypersonic glide vehicle cannot withstand the heat, wherefore the internal systems would be damaged.

“In 2019, Russia’s armed forces will get the new intercontinental strategic system Avangard … It’s a big moment in the life of the armed forces and in the life of the country. Russia has obtained a new type of strategic weapon.” President Putin adds in his comment made at the government meeting.

The new missile system, one of the several new weapons announced in March by Putin, is highly maneuverable, which allows it easily to evade missile defense systems.

Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Yuri Borisov, told the Russian state television, quoted by AP, that Russia’s new strategic weapon has rendered any missile defences useless as it flies 27 times faster than the sound speed, making it impossible for interception.

Russia’s Defence Ministry has released a video from the launch during the tests of the system. Kremlin’s announcement makes it clear that the missile has successfully reached and hit a target at a distance of 6,000 kilometers.

At the same time, Tom Rogan made his analysis for Washington Examiner: “The Avangard system does allow Putin to send a message to the U.S. that he remains committed to resourcing a near-peer warfighting threat to America. While Putin publicly blames U.S. missile defense systems for his development of Avangard, he knows full well that those defense systems were never a threat to Russia’s nuclear capability in the first place. In the event of war, the Russians could overwhelm U.S. defense systems, which are designed to deal with small-scale attacks from evolving nuclear threat actors such as North Korea and Iran). Yet Avangard-type platforms do enable Russia and China (which is also actively developing its own hypersonic reentry vehicle system) to threaten the U.S. in other areas”.

According to Rogan, in a future nuclear war the U.S. would likely be the final winner “even if the costs of that war to the U.S. civilian population would be utterly horrific”.

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Source: News.bg, Pan.bg, Washington Examiner