Russia’s Defense Ministry has just revealed a short video that shows the launch of their latest Kinzhal hypersonic weapon system. The missile is based on a land-based tactical missile system. It is designed to penetrate American defenses and deliver a tactical nuclear warhead. The video released has some strange moments captured in it, including mysterious blurred sections that might be hiding something important. The video starts with two pilots rushing to their MiG-31 Foxhound jet fighter to inspect the attached Kinzhal missile, and then take off.
The Kinzhal is based on the land-based Iskander-M short-range missile and is carried by the MiG-31. The aircraft and missile both were manufactured quite some time ago. Kinzhal is based very much in the spirit of the Pentagon’s own “Third Offset strategy”. The weapon can, therefore, be used in new and innovative ways. An odd thing in the video is the extensive blurring of different parts of the weapon. It is assumed that this is done to hide some of the new-tech features. The weird thing here is that just one second later, the video shows the left side of the Kinzhal nose cone completely unblurred.
The video didn’t show the missile hitting any target. Instead, it shows footage of MiG-31s zooming through the skies. However, the Defense Ministry said that the missile hit a ground target at a nearby testing ground. Kinzhal is designed to counter the US missile defenses like THAAD by placing the missile in a fast moving plane which is capable of flying at Mach 3. THAAD cannot engage an aircraft, therefore MiG can fly close to a target and then launch the missile.
Kinzhal is also a very useful missile against the heavily defended US aircraft carriers. The use of a nuclear warhead means that just one Kinzhal can hit the target and can cause huge damage to the target site.
The future is definitely getting scarier!
