Russian President Vladimir Putin is confident that the Russian Federation will have the means to combat hypersonic weapons that may appear in other countries.
"It [hypersonic weapon] will appear [in the leading military powers]. But I think that we will be able to pleasantly surprise our partners by the fact that when they have these weapons, we will most likely have the means to combat these weapons," the head of state said Vesti Nedeli program. Putin gave the interview specifically for the VGTRK documentary on the 30th anniversary of the new Russia.
"This is the uniqueness of our current situation. I repeat again: it is highly likely that we will have the means to combat hypersonic weapons by the time the leading countries of the world have these hypersonic weapons," Putin said.
Earlier, Putin said that the appearance of hypersonic weapons in Moscow made it pointless to spend huge amounts of money on deterring Russia. According to him, for the first time in history, Russia is ahead of other countries in terms of the development of advanced weapons, including hypersonic ones.
At the end of last year, the first missile regiment armed with the Avangard missile system with hypersonic gliding cruise blocks - a weapon that has no analogs in the world-took up duty in Russia. Tests are also continuing on other advanced Russian weapons, including the Zircon hypersonic anti-ship cruise missile and the Sarmat advanced Russian strategic mine-based missile system.
Russian strategy
Putin explained why the Russian Federation needed a new hypersonic weapon. "When the Soviet Union ceased to exist, there was a vigorous attempt to remake the world for themselves by those who considered themselves winners in the cold war. They began, in fact, ignoring the established norms of international law, to reshape the world, " he recalled.
The Russian leader stressed: "It was quite obvious that this transformation would be more painful for us the weaker we were." "We have really done a lot in the development of the nuclear defense complex. We maintain a certain parity with the United States in terms of carriers and the number of warheads, but we are certainly the leaders in our promising developments," the Russian President stated. He added that Russia is also modernizing its traditional armed capabilities. "We are introducing new complexes. And in this sense, we can say with confidence that we are number one in the world today by this indicator, " the head of state said.
When asked how it was possible to anticipate the need for new weapons, Putin explained: "If the United States announces that it is withdrawing from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, then we should have based our plans on this, to ensure the unconditional security of Russia."
"I always say that the world's leading military powers will certainly have the same weapons that Russia has today. I mean hypersonic weapons. But so far, since 2018, no one has had this weapon yet, " the Russian leader said.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: official website of the President of the Russian Federation