Tsirkon (Zircon) is the new addition to an arsenal of weapons called “invincible” by Vladimir Putin.
Russia has announced successful test launch of hypersonic cruise missile – Tsirkon (Zircon), which the Russian President – Vladimir Putin touts as part of a new generation of missile systems without an equal in the world.
As per the Ministry of Defence of Russian Federation, the missile was launched from an Admiral Gorshkov, a warship located in the White Sea, in the North of Russia. The missile travelled at around 7 times the speed of sound before successfully hitting a ground target on the coastline of the Barents Sea more than 350 kms. (217 miles) away.
Putin had earlier claimed that Tsirkon missile would be capable of flying at 9 times the speed of sound and have a range of 1,000 kms. (620 miles). Russia plans to fit the Tsirkon missile system to its submarines and surface ships.
A Statement from Ministry of Defence read, “The tactical and technical characteristics of the Tsirkon missile were confirmed during the tests.”
The 3M22 Zircon is a scramjet powered maneuvering anti-ship hypersonic cruise missile. The prototypes were test-launched from a Tu-22M3 bomber in 2012–2013. Launches from a ground-based platform followed in 2015, with first success achieved in 2016.
In April 2017, it was reported Zircon had reached a speed of Mach 8 (6,090 mph; 9,800 km/h; 2,722.3 m/s) during a flight test. Zircon was again test-fired on June 3, 2017, almost a year earlier than had been announced by Russian officials. Another flight test reportedly occurred on December 10, 2018, during which the missile demonstrated that it could attain a speed of Mach 8.
In the same year, Putin announced an array of new hypersonic weapons in 2018 in one of his most bellicose speeches in years, saying they could hit almost any point in the world and evade a United States (U.S.)-built missile shield.
The following year, he threatened to deploy hypersonic missiles on ships and submarines that could lurk outside U.S. territorial waters if Washington moved to deploy intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe. Although, the U.S. has not deployed such missiles in Europe, but Moscow is worried it might.
However, the Western powers have questioned how advanced Russia’s new generation of weapons is, while recognising that the combination of speed, manoeuvrability and altitude of hypersonic missiles makes them difficult to track and intercept.
Relations between U.S. and Russia have long been strained. In 2014, relations greatly deteriorated due to the crisis in Ukraine, Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, differences regarding Russian military intervention in the Syrian Civil War and from the end of 2016 over Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. elections and alleged interference in the 2020 elections.
