Russian submarines to be equipped with hypersonic missiles

Russian submarines will be equipped with hypersonic missiles. About it declared Nikolay Evmenov, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy, in a conversation with Krasnaya Zvezda.

“Tests of the Caliber cruise missiles (flying at subsonic speed. – ed.) were carried out on second-generation submarines. And today they can be armed with almost all active submarines, including strategic submarine cruisers. The next step is equipping submarines with hypersonic missile weapons. Let no one doubt that we will do it,” he said.

Evmenov noted that now the Russian Navy has about 10 main projects of submarines and their modifications, the number of which is gradually decreasing due to the unification of projects. “This is necessary to simplify and reduce the cost of their construction, operation, repair and disposal,” Evmenov emphasized.

Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke about the presence of hypersonic missiles in Russia in March 2018 during a message to the Federal Assembly. In July 2022 Putin informedthat the Zircon hypersonic missile will enter service with the Russian Navy in the near future. Zircon is a hypersonic anti-ship cruise missile. It is capable of speeds up to Mach nine (nine times the speed of sound, over 10,000 km/h), with a claimed range of over 1,000 km. Putin noted that the Zircon missile systems have no analogues in the world, “there are no barriers” for them.

In 2018, CNBC, citing sources, reported that the Russian submarine fleet with hypersonic missiles would given in combat readiness by 2024