Putin’s ‘Invincible’ Missile Is Aimed at U.S. Vulnerabilities<br />By NEIL MacFARQUHAR and DAVID E. SANGERMARCH 1, 2018<br />MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia threatened the West with a new generation of nuclear weapons Thursday, including what he described as an “invincible” intercontinental cruise missile<br />and a nuclear torpedo that could outsmart all American defenses.<br />The new Russian weapons would render such defenses obsolete, Mr. Putin gloated,<br />and if anyone found a workaround, “our boys will think of something new.”<br />Other weapons the Russian leader discussed included a ballistic missile called Sarmat<br />that could round either pole and overcome any defense system; hypersonic nuclear weaponry that fly at 20 times the speed of sound; and unmanned deepwater submarines that could go huge distances at enormous speed.<br />If Mr. Putin was not bluffing, said Aleksandr M. Golts, an independent Russian<br />military analyst, then “these weapons are definitely new, absolutely new.”<br />“If we’re talking about nuclear-armed cruise missiles, that’s a technological breakthrough and a gigantic achievement,” he said in an interview.<br />I’d certainly want to see more evidence to believe that.”<br />Mr. Putin said Russia had developed the weaponry because the United States had rejected established arms control treaties<br />and was deploying new missile defense systems in Europe and Asia.
