Hypersonic missiles can fly at least five times faster than the speed of sound and on a complex trajectory, making them difficult to intercept….reports Asian Lite News
The United States is skeptical of reports suggesting Iran had developed a hypersonic missile, a Pentagon spokesperson said on Thursday.
“We’ve seen the reports asserted and coming out of Iran, we remain skeptical of these reports,” Pentagon’s Sabrina Singh told a news conference, Reuters reported.
A senior commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) last week said that the country has built a hypersonic ballistic missile that is capable of penetrating “all missile defence systems”.
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“The missile has a high velocity and can maneuver both in and out of the Earth’s atmosphere,” Iran’s Press TV network quoted Amir-Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the IRGC’s Aerospace Division, as saying on Thursday.
“The new missile can pass through all missile defence systems,” he said, adding that “I don’t think that the technology capable of countering it will be achieved in the decades to come.”
“It can target the enemy’s anti-missile systems, and its production marks a huge leap in the development of a new generation of missiles,” Hajizadeh noted as quoted by Xinhua news agency report.
Hypersonic missiles can fly at least five times faster than the speed of sound and on a complex trajectory, making them difficult to intercept.
Currently China, India, Russia and US have developed fully functional hypersonic weapons in the form of glide vehicles, ballistic missiles, rail guns and air breathing cruise missiles having their own respective independent programs and have demonstrated sustained hypersonic combustions.
Meanwhile, the news of hypersonic missiles comes days after Iran acknowledged that it has provided drones to Russia months before the Ukraine war.
This is for the first time that Iran accepted the fact.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told reporters in the capital, Tehran, that Iran “gave a limited number of drones to Russia months before the Ukraine war,” reported CNN.
The statement by Iran’s Foreign Minister comes after previous denials by Tehran on claims that it had supplied Russia with weapons for use in Ukraine, saying it “has not and will not” do so.
However, Amir-Abdollahian did not say if the drones that were supplied to Moscow were the type that carries explosives.
“Some western countries have accused Iran of helping the war in Ukraine by providing drones and missiles to Russia. The part regarding missiles is completely wrong. The part about drones is correct, we did provide a limited number of drones to Russia in the months before the start of the war in Ukraine,” Amir-Abdollahian told reporters in Tehran, reported CNN.
Self-detonating drones have played a significant role in the conflict since Russia launched its invasion in late February. They are capable of circling for some time in an area identified as a potential target and striking only once an enemy asset is identified.
Russia has launched a series of drone attacks across Ukraine in recent weeks, striking vital civilian infrastructure. Ukrainian officials said last week that they had shot down more than 300 Iranian-made drones, reported CNN.
The last shipment of weapons from Iran to Russia included about 450 drones, officials said, which the Russians have already used to deadly effect in Ukraine.
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