The latest hypersonic sea-based missile "Zircon" in the coming years will be adopted by the Russian Navy. This was stated by Navy Commander-in-Chief Admiral Nikolai Evmenov in an interview with RIA Novosti.

Zircon will be placed on one of the warships of the fleet, frigates. Modernization will take place, and we will test it in order to remove various “childhood diseases”. Now his tests are successful. While we put on all the ships "Caliber" and in parallel we will test the "Zircon", - said Evmenov.

The 3M22 Zircon hypersonic missile is capable of hitting targets at a distance of over 1 thousand km. In this case, the ammunition speed is about nine Mach numbers (more than 9 thousand km / h). However, in 2020, the Ministry of Defense intends to increase this figure to 10 Mach numbers.

In December 2019, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu at a conference call pointed out the need to increase the number of ships equipped with Zircon and Caliber hypersonic missiles. In addition, on October 31, Russian President Vladimir Putin, while visiting Kaliningrad and inspecting the corvette of Project 20385 “Thundering”, said that this warship could receive Zircons.

As military expert Aleksey Leonkov noted in an interview with RT, earlier in the United Shipbuilding Corporation it was said that new, as well as modernized warships would be equipped with advanced hypersonic missiles.

“In general, this will be done as planned, that is, new ones will come out immediately with such capabilities, and the old ones will be retrofitted. Speaking about the frigate, most likely, we are talking about the "Admiral Gorshkov", whose launchers allow you to launch this kind of missile. Thus, it was stated that the prospects for the development of the anti-ship complex were actually identified and they will be realized in the near future, ”the specialist noted.

In turn, the director of the Center for Military-Political Research at MGIMO, Alexey Podberyozkin, said that Russian frigates armed with Zircon can be compared with larger vessels.

“Now the main emphasis is on frigates and corvettes, moreover, armed, first of all, with cruise missiles, and comparable in their firepower to large ships of the ocean zone. Zircon is a hypersonic cruise missile ... that can destroy a fairly large ship even without ammunition - due to kinetic energy, ”the expert said in an interview with RT.

Helicopter carriers

By the 75th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War in Russia, two universal landing helicopter carriers will be laid down, Admiral Nikolai Evmenov also said. In terms of their characteristics, they will be better than the Mistral, the commander emphasized.

“Ships will be laid by May 9, 2020. This is a completely new project. Their displacement will be more than 20 thousand tons with the best (compared to Mistral. - RT ) seaworthiness, operational and structural characteristics, with landing and helicopters, ”said the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy.

  • Mistral-style universal landing helicopter carrier ship
  • RIA News
  • © Grigory Sysoev

Earlier, a TASS source in the military-industrial complex on the sidelines of the Army-2019 international military-technical forum reported that by 2027, it is planned to build two universal landing ships capable of carrying 15-20 helicopters as part of the state armament program (GPV).

Recall, two helicopter carriers of the Mistral type, in accordance with the € 1.2 billion contract concluded between the French DCNS / STX and Rosoboronexport in 2011, were supposed to go into service with the Russian Navy. The transfer of the first ship was planned in November 2014, but Paris first suspended and then terminated the contract due to events in Ukraine and the introduction of EU sanctions against the Russian Federation. Later, the French side paid the Russian Federation compensation for the failure of the contract and concluded a deal to transfer helicopter carriers to Egypt.

Antarctic

The Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Navy spoke about the activities of this type of troops in the Antarctic. According to Nikolai Evmenov, the goals remain the same - scientific research. In particular, the object of observations for the Navy are serious climatic and geographical changes.

“The currents are changing, the outlines of the coasts are changing. But we all know that such icebergs sometimes break off, and this cannot be called an iceberg, because it is comparable in size to a small European country. Therefore, just to keep abreast of events, to be not only ahead of the rest, but at the forefront of Antarctica research, I went on a campaign (“Admiral Vladimirsky. - RT ),” the admiral noted.

  • Oceanographic research vessel Admiral Vladimirsky
  • globallookpress.com

On December 3, an oceanographic research vessel embarked on a round-the-world expedition organized by the High Command of the Russian Navy and dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the discovery of Antarctica by Russian sailors Faddei Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev and the 250th anniversary of the birth of Admiral Ivan Fedorovich Kruzenshtern.