Key points
- Submarine is capable of travelling several times speed of sound
- First nuclear-powered submarine to be fitted with Zircon missiles
- The Zircon missiles have range of 900 km
ISLAMABAD: On Thursday, President Vladimir Putin launched a nuclear-powered submarine equipped with hypersonic Zircon missiles, capable of travelling several times the speed of sound.
Russian news agencies, citing a video link from the Arctic port of Murmansk, reported that Putin officially launched the vessel, named Perm after a city in the Urals, with the command: “I hereby authorise!”.
The Perm is the first nuclear-powered submarine to be fitted with Zircon missiles as a standard feature, according to Reuters.
Zircon missiles speed
The Zircon missiles have a range of 900 km (560 miles) and their high speed makes them extremely difficult to defend against.
The Perm is the sixth submarine in Russia’s Yasen and Yasen-M classes, built by the Sevmash shipyard near Murmansk. The reports noted that the vessel’s construction specifications differ slightly from earlier models in the same class.
While in Murmansk, Putin also visited another submarine, the Arkhangelsk, which belongs to the same class, and toured the Atomflot enterprise, responsible for overseeing Russia’s icebreaker projects.
The Zircon hypersonic missile, designed as an anti-ship missile, entered the arsenal of the Russian military in early 2023, according to the Kyiv Independent.
