The Russian frigate armed with Zircon hypersonic missiles will take part in joint drills in South Africa in February, TASS says.
A Russian warship armed with hypersonic cruise weapons will take part in exercises with the Chinese and South African navies in February, according to the Russian state news agency TASS.
Monday’s report was the first official mention of the involvement of the Russian frigate Admiral of the Soviet Union’s Fleet Gorshkov.
The frigate is armed with Zircon missiles, which fly at nine times the speed of sound and have a range of more than 1,000 km (620 miles).
The missiles form the centerpiece of Russia’s hypersonic arsenal, alongside the Avangard glider vehicle that entered combat service in 2019.
“‘Admiral Gorshkov’… will go to the logistics support point in Syria’s Tartus and then take part in joint naval exercises with the Chinese and South African navies,” TASS said in its report, citing an unnamed defense source.
The South African National Defense Force has said the drills will take place from February 17-26 near the port cities of Durban and Richards Bay on South Africa’s east coast.
He said on Thursday that the joint exercise is aimed at “strengthening the already flourishing relations between South Africa, Russia and China.”
The exercise will be the second involving the three countries in South Africa, after a drill in 2019, the defense force added.
The Gorshkov undertook exercises in the Norwegian Sea earlier this month after President Vladimir Putin sent it into the Atlantic Ocean in a signal to the West that Russia would not back down from the war in Ukraine.
Putin earlier said that the frigate and its Zircon missiles “have no analogues in the world.”
The Russian president sees the weapons as a way to pierce America’s increasingly sophisticated missile defenses.
Russia, the US and China are in a race to develop hypersonic weapons, seen as a way to gain an advantage over any adversary due to their speed and maneuverability, characteristics that make them harder to detect.
