Vladimir Putin has staged war games with a “hypersonic missile launch” in the western Atlantic aimed at riling the US.
The exercise, seen on a Russian defence ministry video, involved a drill firing of “unstoppable” missiles at a range of over 560 miles.
It has been reported that the Russian warship Admiral Gorshkov armed with the weapons conducted an “electronic” launch at an “enemy surface target”.
It came after Putin had ordered the warship to sail towards the US coast, as reports said that the Gorshkov had made an unexpected diversion in the Atlantic.
The frigate carrying the Mach 9 missiles had been tracked 807 miles west of the Portuguese island of Flores in the Azores, suggested ItaMilRadar.
The frigate also carries Kalibr missiles, which is a type that has been used in Russia’s bloody and brutal war in Ukraine.
The Russian warmonger leader took part, albeit remotely, in the farewell ceremony when the warship departed from its Arctic naval base on January 4.
The vessel then sailed ostentatiously through the English Channel on January 11, in what Putin called a show of strength to the west.
He boasted that NATO could not match his “latest-generation” hypersonic firepower and that the missile “has no equivalent in any country in the world."
An independent Russian journalist Dmitry Kolezev mocked the “electronic launch” proximity to the US.
He said: "They didn't launch a real rocket, they just carried out all the operations that precede the launch. The only physical action - dramatically shown in the video - was opening and closing the hatch of the launch shaft.”
The Gorshkov’s captain said after the virtual strike: “Today ship-to-ship combat exercises were conducted to launch a missile strike on an enemy surface target at a range of more than 900 kilometres."
The ship is due to sail to the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean on this mission and will take part in exercises next month with the Chinese and South African navies near the ports of Durban and Richards Bay.
Royal Navy Type 23 frigate HMS Portland monitored the Russian warship and accompanying tanker Kama as they sailed close to the UK.
Earlier the Norwegian navy paid close attention to Putin’s hypersonic mission.
Moscow has boasted that the Gorshkov is “the most dangerous enemy of surface ships in the world’s oceans” now it is armed with the new hypersonic missile.
The frigate’s captain Igor Krokhmal has previously said: "No one will see the missile launch or its flight. They will only see when the missile hits the target."
