President Vladimir Putin has issued a chilling threat as he claimed the Russian navy is set to receive 7,000mph nuclear missiles. Speaking on Russia’s Navy Day in the former imperial capital of St Petersburg, Putin praised Tsar Peter the Great for making Russia a great sea power.
Putin did not mention Ukraine directly - but the Kremlin chief said he had signed a new navy doctrine, the details of which were not published, and touted the Zircon hypersonic cruise missiles as unique in the world. “The delivery of these (missiles) to the Russian armed forces will start in the coming months,” Putin said.
“The Admiral Gorshkov frigate will be the first to go on combat duty with these formidable weapons on board. The key thing here is the capability of the Russian navy... It is able to respond with lightning speed to all who decides to infringe on our sovereignty and freedom.”
Hypersonic weapons can travel at nine times the speed of sound, around 7,000mph, and Russia has conducted previous test-launches of the Zircon from warships and submarines over the past year. At this speed it would reach London in about five minutes, report Mirror Online.
It has been hailed by Moscow’s state-controlled TV as Putin’s weapon of choice to wipe out US cities in the event of an atomic conflict. However, its range has been put around 650 miles, although Krohmal has said it can strike at targets at a distance of 930 miles.
It will initially be deployed from Russian frigates and later from submarines. This comes as a senior official in Russian-annexed Crimea accused Ukraine of carrying out a drone attack ahead of planned celebrations to mark Navy Day, injuring five and forcing the cancellation of festivities.
“An unidentified object flew into the courtyard of the fleet’s headquarters,” Mikhail Razvozhayev, governor of Sevastopol, home to Russia’s Black Sea fleet, wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
“According to preliminary information, it is a drone.” He said Ukraine had decided to “spoil Navy Day for us”.
Razvozhayev said that five employees of the fleet headquarters had been injured in the incident and that the Federal Security Service (FSB) was investigating its circumstances. “All celebrations have been cancelled for security reasons,” Razvozhayev said.
“Please remain calm and stay home if possible.” But Ukraine claimed the Russian’s staged the attack as a pretext not to hold major events including a sail-past by warships, a concert and fireworks - which might have been vulnerable to attack.
It was an “outright provocation”, said a Ukrainian spokesman. “The liberation of our Crimea from the occupiers will take place differently and much more effectively,” said Sergey Bratchuk, the spokesman for the Odessa military administration.
Navy Day is an annual Russian holiday during which its fleets stage naval parades and honour its sailors. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014, prompting a major row with the West which deepened over Moscow’s role in an insurgency of pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
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