MOSCOW, March 20. /TASS/. Submarines of Russian Navy’s Northern Fleet will conduct test firing of hypersonic missiles shortly, Fleet Commander Vice Admiral Alexander Moiseyev said.
"In the nearest future, our submarines will begin test-firing hypersonic weapons. We have already received our orders," he said, speaking to Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper.
On March 11, a military-industrial complex source told TASS that the Tsirkon hypersonic missile is slated for test launch from the Severodvinsk nuclear submarine. Earlier, another source disclosed plans to test-fire this missile from the Kazan submarine, which is expected to be introduced into the Northern Fleet before the end of this year.
The Tsirkon missile has been fired for the first time from a ship in early January. The Admiral Gorshkov frigate fired the missile from the Barents Sea at a coastal target located 500 kilometers away.
The Tsirkon missile
In early 2011, then-Deputy Minister of Defense Vladimir Popovkin announced plans to create a naval complex with a hypersonic missile, named Tsirkon. The missile began flight tests in 2015, according to media reports.
In his 2019 address, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that the missile can reach speed of Mach 9 and can hit both naval and ground targets at a distance of more than 1,000 kilometers.
The missile is fired from a ZS-14 universal naval launch system, installed on Project 22350 frigates, project 20380 corvettes and Yasen-class submarines.