Though China and the United States are also rushing to develop hypersonic vehicles and missiles that are capable of evading conventional missile defenses, it appears as though Russia might be the first nation to actually deploy them. As reported by the Washington Free Beacon , Moscow is planning to field revolutionary hypersonic missiles by 2020, a Russian defense industry leader said. Boris Obnosov, director of the Tactical Missiles Corp., which is run by the government, told a Russian news agency the new missile would be able to penetrate advanced missile defense technologies and thus represents a major step forward in military technology. “It’s obvious that with such speeds—when missiles will be capable of flying through the atmosphere at speeds of seven to 12 times the speed of sound, all [air] defense systems will be weakened considerably,” Obnosov told the Rambler News Service last week. The revelation comes as Navy Adm. Cecil Haney, commander of U.S. Strategic Comm
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