ST. PETERSBURG: Russian President Vladimir Putin said that tests of the Zircon hypersonic missiles, the fastest the world will ever witness at 1,000 kilometers per hour, are almost completed.

Vladimir Putin said that the hypersonic weapon with maximum speed of Mach 9 will appear in Russia in the near future.

“We have now tested, and successfully, and from the beginning of the year we will be armed with new sea-based hypersonic missiles, Mach 9 [speed],” Putin said.

Moscow is developing hypersonic weapons in response to NATO actions that pose threat to Russia, President Vladimir Putin said.

“Things have come to the point that anti-missile defense systems are deployed in Poland and Romania, and the launchers that are there, Mk-41, can also be equipped with Tomahawk strike systems.

But this also creates threats for us. Well, this is the obvious fact, the obvious thing. Despite all of our requests not to do this, what has happened? What we see now. In response, we have been forced, I want to emphasize this, we have been forced to start developing hypersonic weapons. This is our response,” Putin said.

Earlier, Russian Foreign Ministry said that Russia’s objective control means are detecting over 50 NATO reconnaissance aircraft and drones near its borders every week.

In turn, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov pointed to an increase in “provocative actions.” The spokesman mentioned intensified NATO aircraft intelligence and reconnaissance activities in the Black Sea region.

Zircon is the world’s first hypersonic cruise missile capable of carrying out long aerodynamic flights with maneuvering in dense layers of the atmosphere using exclusively its own propulsion power.

The maximum speed of the missile reaches about nine speeds of the sound. Its maximum range totals 1,000 kilometers.