Russian Hypersonic Missile?

Associated Press

POSTED AT 9:28 AM EST Thursday, Feb. 19, 2004

Moscow — Russia has successfully tested a hypersonic anti-Star Wars weapon capable of penetrating any prospective missile shield, a senior general said Thursday.

The prototype weapon proved it could manoeuvre so quickly as to make “any missile defence useless,” Colonel-General Yuri Baluyevsky, the first deputy chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, told a news conference.

He said that the prototype of a new hypersonic vehicle had proved its ability to manoeuvre while in orbit, thereby making it able to dodge an enemy’s missile shield.

“The flying vehicle changed both the altitude and direction of its flight,” Gen. Baluyevsky said. “During the experiment conducted yesterday, we proved that it’s possible to develop weapons that would make any missile defence useless.”

Gen. Baluyevsky’s comment followed a statement by President Vladimir Putin, who said Wednesday after attending rocket launches from the Plesetsk launch pad in northern Russia that experiments conducted during the military manoeuvres had proved that Russia could build new strategic weapons that would be unrivalled in the world.

Mr. Putin said the development of new weapons was not directed against the United States, and Gen. Baluyevsky reaffirmed the statement, saying that the experiment should not be seen as a Russian response to U.S. missile-defence plans.

“The experiment conducted by us must not be interpreted as a warning to the Americans not to build their missile defence because we designed this thing,” he told Associated Press.

He said that Russia has no intention of immediately deploying new weapons based on the experimental vehicle. “We have demonstrated our capability, but we have no intention of building this craft tomorrow,” he said.

Gen. Baluyevsky said that Russia had informed the United States about its intention to conduct the experiment and added that U.S. officials issued no objections.

He said that the new vehicle had “ceased to exist” after the experiment — presumably burning up in the atmosphere.

Gen. Baluyevsky refused to comment on what kind of engine the vehicle had, how long its flight lasted and how exactly it manoeuvred. He said that it had been designed by several Russian companies, but refused to name them.

As part of the massive military manoeuvres described as the largest in more than two decades, the military launched a Molniya-M booster rocket with a Kosmos military satellite from the northern Plesetsk launch pad and two ballistic missiles — a Topol from Plesetsk and an RS-18 from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Gen. Baluyevsky refused to say which of the rockets had carried the vehicle into the orbit.