MOSCOW, December 23. /TASS/. The first regiment of Avangard hypersonic missile systems that went on combat alert in late 2019 in the Orenburg Region will assume its full strength in late 2021, a source in the domestic defense industry told TASS on Wednesday.

"The first regiment of the Yasny division of the Strategic Missile Force will have six silo-based launchers by the end of next year. Therefore, it will be brought to its assigned strength," the source said.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said at the ministry’s enlarged board meeting on December 21 that work continued to rearm that regiment with Avangard hypersonic missile systems. Under the Defense Ministry’s collection of materials on the main results of the Russian Armed Forces’ activity in 2012-2020 obtained by TASS, four Avangard hypersonic missile systems should be on combat alert by late December.

According to the materials, Russia has conducted five successful launches of the intercontinental ballistic missiles with these hypersonic boost-glide vehicles.

A source earlier told TASS that the next two UR-100N UTTKh missiles with the Avangard hypersonic boost-glide warheads might go on combat duty in a regiment of the Yasny missile division of the Strategic Missile Force approximately on December 25.

The Avangard boost-glide vehicle is capable of flying at a hypersonic speed of up to Mach 28 in the dense layers of the atmosphere, maneuvering by its flight path and its altitude and breaching any anti-missile defense. The Avangard hypersonic weapon was first mentioned by Russian President Vladimir Putin in March 2018.