MOSCOW – Russia is planning to arm its defence forces with the latest S-500Prometey/55R6M Triumfator-M surface-to-air missile/anti-ballistic missilesystem even as India and Turkey are in the process of getting the S-400Triumf (NATO reporting name SA-21 Growler) air defence missile system tobolster their arsenal.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov on Tuesday said that thelong-range S-500 missile system, which US intelligence claimed hit targets481.2 kilometres away during trials, will be ready for deployment with hiscountry’s armed forces in a few years. The distance at which the S-500reportedly hit the target is almost 80 km (50 miles) more than the previousrecord.

“Successful preliminary tests allowed the Russian Defence Ministry to makethe decision to shorten the period of the start of serial supplies to thetroops of this air defence missile system. As a result, air defence missileregiments will start receiving S-500 systems already in the coming years”,Borisov was quoted as saying by Russian news agency TASS at the Army 2019International Military-Technical Forum at the Patriot Expocentre in Moscow.

But Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu had in February 2019 announcedthat his troops will start receiving the S-500 system in 2020.

According to Borisov, the S-500 with a range of 600 km is Russia’s mostadvanced defensive missile system and it is being test-fired stage-by-stageto validate all its elements. He claimed that the S-500 will “have noanalogues in the world”. The S-500 Prometey/ 55R6M Triumfator-M willreplace the A-135 anti-ballistic missile system currently with the Russiandefence forces. The S-500 and S-400 will form the backbone of the Russiananti-aircraft/anti-missile defence system. Russian defence forces willreplace the S-300 missiles with the two new systems.

All the trials of S-500 have been successful ensuring that Russian troopswill get the missile system ahead of schedule, he added. “The successfulpreliminary trials have enabled the Defence Ministry of Russia to make adecision on cutting the time of starting the serial deliveries of thissurface-to-air missile system to the troops. As a result, S-500 systemswill start arriving for air defence missile regiments already in comingyears. Currently, stage-by-stage trials of various elements of the S-500anti-aircraft missile system are underway with the launches of new missilesunrivalled in the world,” Borisov said.

According to Russian media, the S-500 surface-to-air missile system caneven intercept and destroy hypersonic cruise missiles which China and USAare building. The S-500 missile’s claimed range is 600 km (370 miles) forballistic missile targets and 400 km (250 miles) for air defence. It willbe able to detect and simultaneously engage up to 10 ballistic hypersonicaerial targets flying between 18,000 kmph (11,000 mph) to 25,000 kmph(16,000 mph).