“Product for intimidation”: the expert doubted the menacingness of the Russian “Zircons”
The number of hypersonic missiles with which the Kremlin decided to scare the West can be counted on the fingers.
Military expert Alexander Kovalenko doubted the menacingness of the Russian “retaliation weapon” – the Zircon hypersonic missiles, with which the Kremlin decided to scare the West. This weapon, which, according to Putin, has no analogues, is installed on the Admiral Gorshkov frigate, which recently departed for a long voyage to the Atlantic Ocean with a call to the Mediterranean Sea.
In a message on his Telegram channel, the analyst expressed doubts about Russia's ability to deliver a massive strike with this “latest weapon”, which may not be as formidable as they say.
Kovalenko stressed that Russia always overestimates the official characteristics of weapons, as the war in Ukraine has shown. So the characteristics of “Zircon” can also be doubted.
In this context, he recalled the Kh-47m2 Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, which are critically in short supply. In the Russian Federation, they cannot establish their mass production due to the catastrophic dependence on foreign microcircuits.
“With Zircon, which was a problematic missile at first, the situation is the same and even worse. For example, tests of Zircon started in 2016, and 9 launches were carried out during this period. That is, 1-2 per year. For intensive tests such a quantitative indicator,” Kovalenko noted.
He added that this rocket was assembled almost by hand. And now “Zircons” are not going at all because of the sanctions.
“Roughly speaking, the Zircon ammunition in Russia can be assessed as piecemeal. How many of them? 2? 4? Well, definitely not tens or hundreds in order to afford to bombard NATO countries with “retaliatory weapons.” In fact, roughly speaking, a kind of “Dagger” “sea-based, a piece product for intimidation,” the expert summed up.
As previously reported, Russian President Vladimir Putin on January 4 set sail a warship armed with the new Tsirkon hypersonic cruise missiles, which, according to him, are unique in the world.
Putin's ally and notorious Kremlin buffoon Dmitry Medvedev threatened that the hypersonic missile frigate “will bring to consciousness anyone who poses a direct threat to Russia”, saying it went “to the shores of NATO countries”.
Recall that the last test of the Zircon missile took place in May 2022 in the Barents Sea near the Finnish border.
