Putin promises Russia's enemies an inevitable blow
Thanks to the latest weapons, Russia is able to detect any enemy and strike an inevitable blow, if necessary, said Russian President Vladimir Putin at a Navy Day parade in St. Petersburg, which was attended by more than 4 thousand troops and more than 50 vessels, including a Borey-A nuclear submarine with ballistic missiles.
"Today, the Russian Navy has everything it needs to guarantee the protection of its native country, our national interests," Putin said.
Speaking in front of the monument to the founder of the Russian Navy, Peter the Great, Putin said that Russia "has taken its rightful place among the leading maritime powers" and has "the latest systems of hypersonic high-precision weapons", which have no equivalents in the world and which are "constantly and successfully" improving.
"We are able to detect any underwater, surface, air enemy and inflict an inevitable blow on him, if necessary," Putin said.
Three days before the start of, according to Putin, the "grandiose" parade, which took place without spectators due to the surge of the COVID-19 cases, the Russian Defense Ministry announced successful tests of Zircon hypersonic nuclear missiles, one of the five types of "super-weapons" presented by Putin during his address to the Federal Assembly in 2018.
The missile fired from the frigate Admiral Gorshkov in the White Sea, moving at a speed 7 times higher than the speed of sound, hit a ground target located on the coast of the Barents Sea, at a distance of more than 350 kilometers.
All "tactical and technical characteristics of the Zircon missile" were confirmed during the tests," the Defense Ministry said.
NATO, commenting on the Russian tests, noted that "new hypersonic missiles significantly destabilize the situation and pose significant risks to security and stability in the entire Euro-Atlantic region."
The emergence of a new types of weapons "increases the risk of escalation and miscalculations" on the part of the Russian leadership, NATO stressed.
NATO remains "committed to a measured response to Russia's growing arsenal of conventional and nuclear missiles" without making additional efforts to respond to what Moscow is doing.