Kathrine Frich
The nature of warfare changes every time a faster weapon rolls off the production line.
Modern armies are constantly racing to build tools that travel too quickly for standard radars to catch. That deadly competition has just introduced a terrifying new threat to the sky.
Speed over precision
Russia has started firing the Zircon hypersonic missile. According to Daily Express, analysts report that the new weapon travels at an extreme speed that standard air defences struggle to stop.
But that incredible velocity comes with a flaw. Experts note the Zircon is highly inaccurate, so Russian forces often fire it alongside older ballistic missiles.
Pavlo Lakiychuk shared this assessment. He leads security programmes at the Centre for Global Studies Strategy XXI and serves as a Ukrainian Navy reserve captain.
Echoes of the past
Lakiychuk sees a clear pattern here. He compares the hypersonic threat to the older Kh-22 missiles dropped by Tu-22 bombers.
Those older systems were originally built to sink aircraft carriers.
“If you attach a thermonuclear warhead to the missile, a megaton explosion will occur, and it doesn’t matter where it hits, what part of the ocean, everything around for 30-40 km will turn into the epicenter of a nuclear explosion. It should be noted that the Tu-22 has not shot down a single aircraft carrier, but now they are terrorizing the Ukrainian people,” Lakiychuk said.
Hunting the launchers
While older missiles targeted the sea, the newer Zircon operates from multiple domains.
“Zircon is part of the Northern Fleet of the Russian Federation, and ‘Bastion’, land-based launchers, are in the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation. However, our guys have already destroyed 1 or 2 launchers from this division. Let’s hope that they will destroy all the others as well,” Lakiychuk added.
Ukraine is now taking the fight directly to the factories that build this hardware.
Striking deep inside
Forces launched a massive wave of long-range attacks deep into Russian territory this week. According to President Volodymyr Zelensky, the operation successfully wiped out several energy installations and military factories.
One major target was a plant in Cheboksary. Sitting more than 560 miles from the front lines, the facility makes drone antennas, according to the news outlet Astra.
Russian officials openly confirmed the chaos. The Defence Ministry claimed its forces intercepted 326 drones overnight, while Samara Governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev reported that local strikes injured three people and damaged industrial sites.
Sources: Centre for Global Studies Strategy XXI, Astra
