Those weapons include cruise missiles, nuclear-powered underwater drones and a new hypersonic missile that travels five times the speed of sound.
“The foreign policy part of Putin’s speech focused on how the United States had ignored Russia’s strategic interests long enough,” NPR’s Lucian Kim reported from Moscow. “Putin repeatedly interrupted his speech to show videos of cutting-edge rockets and torpedoes snaking their way to their targets.”
Putin uses state-of-nation speech to show off Russia’s new super weapons: “Nobody wanted to talk to us. Now listen to us.”
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Putin warned that any use of nuclear weapons against Russia or its allies would trigger a response.
The speech precedes Russia’s upcoming presidential elections, set for March 18. Putin is widely expected to win his fourth term in office.
With videos and computer graphics displayed on giant screens, Putin showed off the array of new weapons to the hundreds of officials and lawmakers gathered for the address.
“A low-flying, low-visibility cruise missile armed with a nuclear warhead and possessing a practically unlimited range, unpredictable flight path and the capability to impregnate practically all interception lines is invulnerable to all existing and future anti-missile and air defense weapons,” Putin said, according to the state news service TASS. He said the missile was successfully tested late last year.