Putin's INVINCIBLE hypersonic missile revealed in chilling footage
VLADIMIR Putin answered his critics today by showing off Russia's new Sarmat intercontinental
ballistic missile.
Ominous footage shows the "invincible" hypersonic weapon emerging from an underground
silo, pausing as if hovering above the ground, and then speeding away in a cloud of white
smoke.
The launch was at the snow-covered Plesetsk spaceport in northern Russia.
It comes amid the greatest tension between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold
War with tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions over the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal
in Britain.
The new launch is shown on a 23-second video from the Russian Defence Ministry.
The ICBM was fired for the second time since tests began last December, say Moscow officials.
"This new test at the Plesetsk spaceport confirmed its characteristics during the pre-launch
and initial flight phases," the ministry said in a statement.
Putin said during his annual state of the nation parliamentary address this month that
Russia had begun actively testing the Sarmat – known to NATO as the SS-X-32 SNOWFLAKE.
It is expected to go operational in 2021 with the the Uzhur-based strategic missile force
division.
At least 500 American ABM missiles would be needed to intercept the warhead, according
to Viktor Bondarev, chairman of Russian senate's Defence and Security Committee.
"That is the conclusion of Western experts," he claimed.
US officials have sounded a growing alarm about the potential threat from hypersonic
weapons – those that can travel at five times the speed of sound or more.
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