S-500 and More Coming Soon: President Putin Claims Russia Will Imminently Be Able to Counter Hypersonic Missile Attacks

Speaking on the ongoing modernisation of the country’s armed forces, and following considerable investment to establish a lead in hypersonic missile technologies, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on June 14th that the country’s armed forces would soon field countermeasures capable of intercepting hypersonic attacks. “It's very likely that we will have means to combat hypersonic weapons by the time the world's leading countries have such weapons,” he stated to this effect, noting that Russia was ahead of the United States in the field. Russia’s hypersonic capabilities have been cause for particularly serious concern in Western countries since President Putin unveiled a new generation of hypersonic missile systems in March 2018, which included the Sarmat intercontinental range ballistic missile, the Avangard intercontinental range glide vehicle and the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal air launched tactical ballistic missile among others. Hypersonic missiles were notably deployed by China from 2019, with the DF-17 representing the first medium range ground based missile with a hypersonic glide vehicle. China’s advances in this field are thought to have benefitted from some transfers of Russian technologies.

Russia has notably sought to field long range air defence systems capable of intercepting hypersonic targets, a capability its S-400 and S-300V4 systems currently have to some extent with their long range missiles capable of striking targets at Mach 14 speeds - enough to intercept missiles travelling at lower hypersonic speeds. The upcoming S-500 system will expand this capability soon, as well complementary shorter ranged systems possibly including a reported new variant Pantsir air defence combat vehicle capable of firing hypersonic surface to air missiles. The A-235 system has also been designed to intercept intercontinental range ballistic missiles at extreme speeds, although it can only do so at high altitudes. The new announcement by President Putin comes as the U.S. appears to be redoubling investment in hypersonic missile technologies, and could indicate that the much anticipated S-500 system which began production over two years ago may finally be declared fully operational and enter frontline service.