MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday hailed final tests of a hypersonic missile, which he earlier said would render existing missile defence systems obsolete. "On my instructions, the Ministry of Defence prepared and conducted a final test of this system. This has just been completed with absolute success," Putin said during a televised meeting with members of the government. "Russia has a new type of strategic weapon," he said, adding that the intercontinental "Avangard" system would be ready for use from 2019.
The Kremlin told Russian news agencies the test had taken place in far eastern Kamchatka while Putin was at the national defence control centre. Putin unveiled features of the Avangard during his annual address in March, which he said would be part of a new generation of "invincible" weaponry. The hypersonic missile could fly at 20 times the speed of sound and manoeuvre up and down, meaning it could breach defence systems, he said at the time. The final test comes after US President Donald Trump announced plans to pull out of a key Cold War-era nuclear weapons pact, the three-decade-old Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF). Putin haslaid out plans to develop missiles banned under thedeal if the United States abandons it.
Orban’s Fidesz remains the most popular party in Hungary
Azerbaijan has been demanding the villages’ return as a precondition for a peace deal after more than three decades...
The Republican Party and the Trump campaign said in a statement that they plan to recruit an army of poll watchers
All three suffered some frostbite to their cheeks, despite wearing heated masks
Sunak sought to appeal to core Conservative voters by warning the current welfare bill was fiscally unsustainable
The inquiry published its report in 2010, finding that some soldiers had knowingly put forward false accounts