Russian warship loaded with hypersonic cruise weapons conducts drills in Norwegian Sea

A Russian warship armed with hypersonic cruise weapons held exercises in the Norwegian Sea, the defence ministry said on Tuesday. "The crew of the frigate 'Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Gorshkov' conducted an air defense exercise in the Norwegian Sea," the ministry said.

"The crew... conducted an exercise to repel the means of an air attack of a simulated enemy in the Norwegian Sea."

President Vladimir Putin had sent the frigate to the Atlantic Ocean last week. It is armed with new generation hypersonic cruise missiles, called the Zircon missiles. The actionis apparently a signal to the West that Russia will not back down over the war in Ukraine.

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Russia says the Zircon missiles can fly at nine times the speed of sound and have a range of over 1,000 km (620 miles).

Moscow touts the weapons as a way to pierce increasingly sophisticated US missile defences. Putin has warned that these defences can one day shoot down Russian nuclear missiles. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev last week warned the United States that the hypersonic missiles would soon be close to NATO's shores.

Meanwhile, one of Putin's closest allies said on Tuesday that Russia was now fighting the NATO military alliance in Ukraine. He further accused the West of trying to rip Russia apart and ultimately wipe it from the political map of the world.

"The events in Ukraine are not a clash between Moscow and Kyiv - this is a military confrontation between Russia and NATO, and above all the United States and Britain," Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said.

"The Westerners' plans are to continue to pull Russia apart, and eventually just erase it from the political map of the world," Patrushev told the Argumenti i Fakti newspaper.

(With inputs from agencies)

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