REUTOV /Moscow Region/, January 27. /TASS/. Russia’s breakthrough Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle has no rivals in the world, Deputy Head for Armaments at the Strategic Missile Force’s Peter the Great Military Academy Alexander Chemusov told the 47th Cosmonautics Readings conference on Friday.

"And now about the Avangard missile system engineered by the Research and Production Association of Machine-Building for the Strategic Missile Force. Of course, it excited the global public when we held a full cycle of tests. The tabloids voiced doubts and distrust that this could be done. The 2-3% success already makes the engineering staff rejoice and the breakthrough here is so great that nobody is breathing down our necks: this is such a splendid missile created by the staff of the Research and Production Association of Machine-Building," Chemusov said.

By now, two regiments armed with Avangard hypersonic glide vehicles have gone on combat alert in the Yasny missile formation in the Orenburg Region in the southern Urals.

The Avangard boost-glide vehicle is capable of flying at a hypersonic speed of up to Mach 27 (about 32,000 km/h) 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.