Vladimir Putin made his state-of-the-nation speech just days before he is expected to win another six-year presidential term. Photo / AP
Vladimir Putin made his state-of-the-nation speech just days before he is expected to win another six-year presidential term. Photo / AP
Analysts say claims of developments likely to be aimed at Russian voters.
Russia claims to have developed new strategic weapons impervious to Western defences but experts believe any such development is unlikely to change the balance of global power.
Russian nuclear missiles already have the ability to annihilate the United States, and US defence strategy is based mainly on the deterrent threat of massive nuclear retaliation, not on an impenetrable shield against Russian missiles.
A computer simulation shows the flight of a prospective Russian nuclear-powered cruise missile en route to target. Photo / AP
Some analysts said President Vladimir Putin's statements about the new weapons may speed up what they see as an emerging arms race with the US. Just last month the US cast Russia as the main reason it needs to develop two new nuclear weapons: A lower-yield warhead for a submarine-launched ballistic missile and a sea-launched nuclear cruise missile.
The Trump Administration has vowed to expand US nuclear strength, while criticising Russia's buildup. Putin's remarks seem unlikely to change that equation or divert the Trump Administration from its path toward modernising the full US nuclear arsenal at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars while also expanding missile defences.
Putin, in a state-of-the-nation speech in Moscow just days before he is expected to win another six-year presidential term, said his new weapons include a nuclear-powered cruise missile, a nuclear-powered underwater drone that could be armed with a nuclear warhead, and a hypersonic missile that has no equivalent in the world.
The Pentagon recently mentioned Russia's work on two of those weapons: the underwater drone with intercontinental range and a hypersonic "glide vehicle", which is a weapon that Washington and Beijing also are working on.
The Pentagon has not publicly talked about the nuclear-powered cruise missile mentioned by Putin. It is reminiscent of US work in the 1960s on a similar weapon, dubbed "The Big Stick", but ultimately scrapped.
A computer simulation shows the flight of a prospective Russian nuclear-powered cruise missile en route to target. Photo / AP
"President Putin has confirmed what the United States Government has known all along, which Russia has denied: Russia has been developing destabilising weapons systems for over a decade in direct violations of its treaty obligations," Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House spokeswoman, said in response to Putin's announcement.
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert noted that Putin was speaking ahead of the March 18 election.
"We think he was playing to the audience," she said, adding that Putin's boasts were irresponsible. She said it was "unfortunate" to watch a Russian video animation Putin showed during his address that she said depicted "a nuclear attack on the United States". She called the animation "cheesy".
Although Putin said his announcement was intended to get the attention of the US, he also said he was open to talks with Washington.
"We aren't threatening anyone, we aren't going to attack anyone, we aren't going to take anything from anyone," he said.
Putin claimed his new weapons will render US and European defences useless, suggesting an escalation of the stakes in a long-running struggle for stability in the post-Cold War world. Moscow has long threatened to find technological ways around Western missile defences that it sees as threatening and that the West denies are aimed at Russia.
Thomas Karako, a missile defence expert at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said Putin's statements were consistent with a larger pattern of Russian thinking about nuclear weapons and Russia's role in the world.
The launch of what President Vladimir Putin said is Russia's new nuclear-powered intercontinental cruise missile. Photo / AP
The Trump Administration interprets Russian statements and actions over the past several years, including its annexation of Crimea and military incursions into eastern Ukraine, as requiring a stronger US nuclear deterrent..
Pentagon spokeswoman Dana W. White said the US would stick to its insistence that US missile defences are not a threat to Russia.
"This is not about defence; it's about deterrence," she said, adding that the Defence Department was not surprised by Putin's weapons claims.
Michaela Dodge, a Heritage Foundation missile defence expert, said Putin's statements confirmed that the Trump Administration was right to build its recent review of nuclear weapons policy around concerns about Russia.
The Administration's view is that Russian policies and actions are fraught with potential for miscalculation leading to an uncontrolled escalation of conflict in Europe. It specifically points to a Russian doctrine known as "escalate to de-escalate", in which Moscow would use or threaten to use lower-yield nuclear weapons in a limited, conventional conflict in Europe in the belief that doing so would compel the US and Nato to back down.
