deployed on a warship<\/a>.<\/p>\nExperts say the Zircon, if it lives up to what the Russian government says about it, is a formidable weapon.<\/p>\n
Its hypersonic speed makes it invulnerable to even the best Western missile defenses, like the Patriot, according to the United States-based Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance (MDAA).<\/p>\n
The alliance says its speed has been put at Mach 8, or almost 9,900 kilometers per hour (6,138 mph). Hypersonic is defined as any speed above Mach 5 (3,836 mph).<\/p>\n
\u201cIf that information is accurate, the Zircon missile would be the fastest in the world, making it nearly impossible to defend against due to its speed alone,\u201d the alliance says on its website.<\/p>\n
The site also points to the missile\u2019s plasma cloud as another \u201cvaluable\u201d feature.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring flight, the missile is completely covered by a plasma cloud that absorbs any rays of radio frequencies and makes the missile invisible to radars. This allows the missile to remain undetected on its way to the target,\u201d it says.<\/p>\n
Additionally, the MDAA says the Zircon is \u201ca maneuvering anti-ship hypersonic cruise missile\u201d with a range of somewhere between 500 and 1,000 kilometers (310 to 620 miles).<\/p>\n
When the Russian navy frigate Admiral Gorshkov set out on a combat mission last January, leader Vladimir Putin boasted about the Zircon missiles the ship was carrying.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has no analogues in any country in the world,\u201d Putin said, according to a report from the state media agency TASS. \u201cI am sure that such powerful weapons will reliably protect Russia from potential external threats and will help ensure the national interests of our country,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
If Russia has introduced the new weapon into the conflict, it could mean trouble for a Ukrainian air defense already straining to repel Moscow\u2019s aerial attacks.<\/p>\n
For instance, in that February 7 attack in which the Zircon was allegedly used, three Iskander ballistic missiles and four Kh-22 cruise missiles fired by Russian forces evaded attempts to bring them down, data from Ukraine\u2019s air force shows.<\/p>\n
Although air defenses have brought down Iskander missiles in the past, it is believed that Ukraine has failed to intercept a single Kh-22 in almost two years of war. Speaking in December, Ukrainian Air Force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat said that Russia had fired almost 300 Kh-22s so far in the war.<\/p>\n
Ukraine\u2019s air defenses did have some success during the February 7 attack, bringing down 26 of 29 Kh-101, Kh-555 and Kh-55 type cruise missiles, all three Kalibr cruise missiles and 15 of 20 Shahed drones fired by Russia. But those are less-advanced than the Zircon.<\/p>\n
Despite that, analysts caution not to exaggerate the impact the use of the Zircon could have on the war as a whole.<\/p>\n
As it is a new \u2013 and expensive \u2013 technology, one question is, how many has Russia produced?<\/p>\n
A key \u201cconsideration is Russia\u2019s ability to produce and field a capability like Zircon at scale, especially as the program will compete for financial and other resources with priorities like rebuilding the Russian ground forces,\u201d Sidharth\u00a0Kaushal, research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, wrote last year after the Admiral Gorshkov allegedly deployed with Zircons aboard.<\/p>\n
Fuente:<\/strong> https:\/\/edition.cnn.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Las autoridades del Kyiv Scientific Research Institute de Ucrania, informaron que en el ataque sobre blancos terrestres del 12feb24, Rusia utiliz\u00f3 por primera vez su… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14160,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14159"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14159"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14162,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14159\/revisions\/14162"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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