MOSCOW, Oct 4 Reuters - Russia announced on Monday it successfully test launched a Tsirkon Zircon Hypersonic Cruise missile from a submarine for the first time, a weapon President Vladimir Putin has lauded as part of a new generation of unrivalled weapons systems.
The defence minister, that tested firing the Tsirkon missile in July from a warship, said that the Severodvinsk submarine had fired the missile while stationed in the Barents Sea and hit its chosen target.
Low-quality video footage released by the Ministry showed the missile fired upwards from a submarine, its glare illuminating the sky and lighting water's surface.
The tests firing from a nuclear submarine was deemed successful, ministry said.
Some western experts have questioned how advanced the Russian new generation of weapons is, while recognising that the combination of speed, manoeuvrability and altitude of hypersonic missiles makes them difficult to track and intercept.
In July, parts of footage showing Russia's advanced new surface to air missile system S - 500 appeared to have been deliberately blurred to make it harder to examine in detail.
Putin announced an array of new hypersonic weapons in 2018 in one of his most bellicose speeches in years, saying they could hit almost any point in the world and evade a U.S. missile shield.