Russia “opens the era of hypersonic missiles”

Russian President Vlydimir Putin announced that he has officially deployed Avangard, a hypersonic gliding intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying up to 2 megaton nuclear warheads. According to Russian claims, the avant-garde flies at a maximum speed of Mach 5 at a high altitude with low air resistance like a missile, and after separation, it glides while revising its orbit like a glider.

President Putin announced the avant-garde in an annual national speech in March 2018, and in December of the same year, he conducted a launch test at a missile base in the southern Ural Mountains and hit a test target located 6,000 km away on the Kamchatka Peninsula.

The U.S. and China are also developing hypersonic systems similar to the avant-garde, but the only avant-garde has yet been tested for launch. Also, it can be seen that it is difficult to intercept bombs flying to Mach 5 with a missile interceptor system.

There are skeptical opinions about whether Russia really deploys the avant-garde in action, and views that the number of missiles manufactured is not large yet. However, if enough missiles of this type are produced, it may be possible to reproduce the Cold War era, and if so, the Doomsday Clock may go faster. Related information can be found here .