Russia will equip their Yasmen-m nuclear submarines with Zircon hypersonic missiles. Image source: Олег Кулешов/Wikimedia
The head of Russia’s largest shipbuilder has told state news that the country is in the process of equipping its new nuclear submarines with hypersonic missiles.
“Multi-purpose nuclear submarines of the Yasen-M project will … be equipped with the Zircon missile system on a regular basis,” CEO of the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) Alexei Rakhmanov told RIA, a Russian state news agency.
“Work in this direction is already underway.”
The Yasen-class submarines are a new type of nuclear-powered submarines equipped with cruise missiles—long-range guided missiles that cruise in the atmosphere at high speed.
These submarines are part of a program to modernise the Russian army and fleet, and have been built to replace Soviet-era nuclear attack submarines.
The Zircon missiles are sea-based hypersonic missiles that can travel at several times the speed of sound, with a range of 900km. The missiles’ speed and ability to modify its course makes it difficult to intercept them.
Earlier this year, President Vladimir Putin said that Russia would begin stockpiling Zircon missiles as part of its plan to boost its nuclear armaments.
This week’s announcement was made a day after the United States and Japan announced that they will agree to jointly develop an interceptor missile designed to counter the hypersonic weapons being created by Russia, China and North Korea.
Japan and the US had agreed in January to consider the development of the hypersonic interceptor during a meeting of the US’ Secretary of State and Defense Secretary and their Japanese counterparts — Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada.
The agreement is expected to be formalized when US President Joe Biden meets Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in the US at the end of the week.
Previously, the countries have developed a long-range missile designed to intercept warheads in space, which have since been deployed on Japanese warships.
