Britain intends to develop hypersonic weapons because of concerns over the creation of new military equipment in Russia, the British daily newspaper The Telegraph wrote
The British government has announced that the Ministry of Defence plans to allocate additional funds to develop modern technology, such as hypersonic missiles and laser weapons. The Prime Minister announced £6.6bn for “cutting-edge military research”.
“Britain’s adversaries, such as Russia, are investing in new programmes to develop airborne weapons that can overcome existing missile defence systems. These include hypersonic gliding weapons capable of speeds in excess of 24,000km/hour”, – the newspaper says.
The Telegraph stresses that military leaders in Britain and the United States have been concerned in recent years about the development and creation of new military equipment in Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.
“This rush to develop new weapons is partly the result of reports from Russia last October of successful tests of the hypersonic Zirkon anti-ship cruise missile, which has a speed of Mach 8, and the Avangard hypersonic weapon planning unit, supposedly capable of delivering nuclear warheads to targets at 20 times the speed of sound”, – according to the paper.