... tomorrow. The implications are enormous. I want to repeat--when I say that the West lost the arms race, it is not a hyperbole or a figure of speech. I mean it as I say it. I made my career and reputation of the last 11 years precisely by describing and documenting this process. So, today:
Translation: MOSCOW, July 15 — RIA Novosti. President Vladimir Putin met with the head of the Russian Academy of Sciences Gennady Krasnikov. The head of the academy spoke about hypersonic weapons, textbooks and international contacts. Key statements — in the RIA Novosti material.
--The Russian Academy of Sciences conducts fundamental research in the interests of the country's defense and security, and has obtained a unique result in the field of hypersonics.
--All research on this program is in demand, they have been agreed upon with the chief designers of weapons.
--Krasnikov will separately report to Putin on the results of this work.What does it all mean? Consider this: after the Vladimir Putin's Address to the Federal Assembly on March 1, 2018 it became clear that there was an immense qualitative leap in technologies which made now fully combat tested weapons systems possible. Weapons such as Kinzhal or Zircon render any NATO AD system useless, with the exception of the fantasies of NATO fanboys and amateurs. I spoke about "rumors" of new generation of 3M22 Zircon getting to the parameters such is M=13+ and the range of 2,500 + km. I think we can reasonably expect something even more impressive which completely redefines such things as naval and air warfare. Having something which is launched from some Yasen-class SSGN or latest versions of Gorshkov-M class FFGs which flies at M=15 at 3,000 km. Yes, that makes NATO surface fleets completely not just obsolete, they already are, but a scrap metal.
Mind you, this is not just enormous velocity and range, this is yet another leap in materials, sensors and C4. And what else comes after that? Who knows. We'll have to wait and see how this will further affect strategic nuclear forces, but one thing is clear--NATO has nothing which can even come close, especially in terms of AD, and it will have even more than nothing (if such thing is possible at all) and the only "military" action they can possibly take will be, and you have guessed it already, sabotage and terrorism, which, as we all know--the weapon of the weak.