A CNBC report on
July 13 cited US intelligence sources saying the Russia’s Kinzhal
Kh-47M2 long-range air-to-surface hypersonic missile is “likely be ready
for combat as early as 2020”. The weapon has been tested 12 times on a
MiG-31 fighter jet and efforts are underway to make it integrated with
the Tu-22M3 long-range bomber. Three recent tests have been a success.
This month, a target was hit nearly 500 miles away. The missile is going
through trials in Southern Military District.
At
first, Western experts sounded skeptical about the news that Russia had
the weapon, dismissing it as “saber rattling”. Many said it was just
hype when Russian President Putin made public the
information in early March about some cutting-edge systems only Russia
and no other country had. US military officials and lawmakers also downplayed it then.
Mathieu Boulègue, a Chatham House expert on Russia, expressed doubts about
Russia’s ability to develop something “new and ground-breaking”. James
Acton, a physicist with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the Daily Beast that other countries simply did not want to develop such systems because “strapping a rocket to a plane doesn’t necessarily make for an effective, scalable weapon.”
He believed that being a sort of shortcut hypersonic munition fast
enough to evade enemy defenses but unable to accurately strike targets
at long range, the Kinzhal was “more useful as a vehicle for propaganda than as a vehicle for high explosives.”
Mark Galeotti, a senior researcher at the Institute of International
Relations Prague and head of its Centre for European Security, chimed in saying in his Guardian article that “Sounds
impressive, terrifying even, but should not be taken entirely at face
value. Russian defense industries have a pretty poor track record in
delivering advanced systems.”
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/07/16/us-intelligence-dispels-skeptical-attitudes-toward-russia-defense-technological-advances.html
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