MOSCOW, Jan 10 (Archyde.com) – A Russian warship armed with cruise hypersonic weapons has conducted exercises in the Norwegian Sea, the Defense Ministry said on Tuesday.
“The crew of the frigate ‘Soviet Union Fleet Admiral Gorshkov’ conducted an air defense exercise in the Norwegian Sea,” the ministry said.
“The crew (…) conducted an exercise to repel the means of a simulated enemy air attack in the Norwegian Sea.”
Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin sent the frigate into the Atlantic Ocean armed with next-generation hypersonic cruise missiles, a signal to the West that Russia will not back down from the war in Ukraine.
The frigate is armed with Zircon missiles, which Russia says fly at nine times the speed of sound and have a range of more than 1,000 kilometers.
Russia believes these weapons can pierce America’s increasingly sophisticated missile defenses, which Putin has warned could one day shoot down Russian nuclear missiles.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned the United States last week that hypersonic missiles would soon be near NATO shores.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing in Spanish by Benjamín Mejías Valencia)