Russia’s Avangard strategic silo-based hypersonic missile complex has been included in the state armament plan through 2027 instead of Rubezh intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) as a weapon more essential to ensure the country’s defense capability, a source in the domestic defense industry told TASS on Thursday.
Russia was going to spend money on both but poor finances have force prioritizing hypersonic missiles over ICBMs.
The Barguzin rail-mobile ballistic missile system was excluded from Russia’s new state armament plan for 2018-2027.
Rubezh and Avangard missile complexes
The RS-26 Rubezh is the project of a road mobile missile complex armed with a small-sized intercontinental solid-propellant ballistic missile with greater precision. The weapon’s development was announced for the first time in March 2013 by Chief Designer of the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology Yuri Solomonov.
The Avangard is the project of the strategic ICBM complex armed with a hypersonic glide vehicle. According to open sources, the complex was developed by the Research and Production Association of Machine-Building (the Moscow Region). The trials of the system’s prototypes started in 1990. The glide vehicle is capable of flying in the dense layers of the atmosphere at hypersonic speed, maneuvering along its flight path and by its altitude and breaching any anti-missile defense.
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