Monitoring Desk
MOSCOW: Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Tuesday that a Russian warship armed with hypersonic cruise weapons had held exercises in the Norwegian Sea.
The ministry said that the crew of the frigate ‘Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Gorshkov’ conducted an air defense exercise in the Norwegian Sea.
“The crew of the frigate conducted an exercise to repel the means of an air attack of an imitated enemy in the Norwegian Sea.”
Warship exercise a signal to West
Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin sent the frigate to the Atlantic Ocean armed with new-generation hypersonic cruise missiles. The move was a signal to the West that Russia would not back down over the Ukraine war.
The frigate Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Gorshkov is armed with Zircon missiles which Russia claims fly at nine times the speed of sound and have a range of over 1,000 km.
Moscow sees the weapons as a way to pierce increasingly sophisticated US missile defenses, which Putin has warned could one day shoot down Russian nuclear missiles.
Last week, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned the United States that the hypersonic missiles would soon be close to NATO’s shores.
