Russia is working hard and developing the latest air-launched X-95 long-range hypersonic missile, Colonel-General Vladimir Zarudnitsky, head of the military academy of the General Staff, said in an article for the Military Thought magazine.
Zarudnitsky said that he considered dominance in the aerospace sphere to be the most important condition for the successful conduct of hostilities, and it can be ensured through the effective use of strike and fighter aircraft.
“For these purposes, for the Aerospace Forces, new and modernized models of weapons, military and special equipment are being developed and adopted, such as the Tu-160M strategic missile-carrying bomber; the Kinzhal aviation hypersonic missile system; long-range high-precision airborne weapons, in particular, the X-95 hypersonic missile,” Zarudnitsky said.
An unnamed RIA Novosti source in the military-industrial complex also confirmed that the missile was being developed for use in the armament of the modernized Tu-22M3M long-range bomber, the modernized Tu-160M strategic bomber and the Advanced Long-Range Aviation Complex. The interlocutor of the agency claims that “prototypes of the new product have already been tested from the air carrier.”
According to Zarudnitsky, domination in the aerospace sphere is “the most important condition for the successful conduct of hostilities by land and sea groupings of troops.” In his opinion, it is necessary not only to produce and adopt new types of weapons, but also to develop “new forms of their use and methods of combat operations”, which will ensure the achievement of domination in the aerospace sphere.
At the end of June, President Vladimir Putin announced that the Sarmat intercontinental missile and the Zircon hypersonic missile would soon enter service. He recalled that the Avangard and Dagger hypersonic complexes had already been put on alert.
In addition, he added, unmanned aerial vehicles, over-the-horizon detection radars, anti-aircraft missile systems, and other state-of-the-art military equipment are being created.
A source in the military-industrial complex told RIA Novosti that a new hypersonic missile is being developed for Tu-22M3M and Tu-160M bombers, as well as for the Advanced Long-Range Aviation Complex (PAK DA).
“Prototypes of the new product have already been tested from the air carrier,” Zarudnitsky said.
In February, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that the various hypersonic systems would become the backbone of Russia’s non-nuclear deterrent forces.
Currently, the Russian Aerospace forces are carrying out experimental combat duty of the Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, which during tests reached a speed of Mach 10.
Intra-fuselage hypersonic missiles are being developed for the fifth generation Su-57 fighter.
The warships and submarines of the Navy are to be armed with the Zircon hypersonic cruise missile – on July 19 the frigate “Admiral Gorshkov” successfully test-fired such a projectile and successfully destroyed a ground target.
