The Russians will have a nuclear-powered submarine fleet — capable of launching intercontinental ballistic missiles equipped with hypersonic weapons — by 2024, a report says.
Moscow plans to add at least eight submarines to its ever-growing arsenal, which will be able to fire up to 20 ICBMs, each armed with 10 nuclear and hypersonic weapons, according to CNBC.
The US Navy currently has 14 vessels in its nuclear-powered fleet, all Ohio-class. Military officials warned people about Russia’s advancements back in March, saying it was “aggressively pursuing supersonic capabilities.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly cut funding to a number of other modernization programs — including the Navy’s surface vessel fleet — to make room for the new subs. Dubbed the Borei II, or Borei-A, each vessel will be carrying Bulava ICBMs, which carry a bomb yield of 100 to 150 kilotons. That’s about 10 times more powerful than the atomic blast on Hiroshima. But the real fear, officials said, is what Russia plans to do with the hypersonic weapons — each capable of traveling around one mile per second at speeds over Mach 5. They were unveiled by the Russians earlier this summer, and should be ready for war by 2020, CNBC reports.
“We don’t have any defense that could deny the employment of such a weapon against us,” Air Force Gen. John Hyten, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in March. “Our response would be our deterrent force, which would be the Triad and the nuclear capabilities that we have to respond to such a threat.”
The warning came after Putin made comments about the country’s “invincible” nuclear fleet and ongoing military advancements during his national address that month.
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