Russian President oversees successful nuclear missile test

Russian President Vladimir Putin has overseen a test of a new hypersonic missile, declaring that the weapon is impossible to intercept and will guarantee the country's security over the coming decades.

Speaking to Russia's military top brass on Wednesday after watching the live feed of the launch of the Avangard system from the defence ministry's control room, Putin said the test was a "great success" and an "excellent New Year's gift to the nation".

According to the Kremlin, the missile was launched from the Dombarovskiy missile base in the southern Ural Mountains and hit its target on a test site in Kamchatka, about 6,000km away.

Earlier reports say the Avangard has intercontinental range and the ability to fly as fast as Mach 20, more than 15,000 miles per hour.

As it closes in on its target, the missile with a manoeuvrable gliding warhead can adjust both altitude and direction to avoid defences and fly low enough to avoid most interceptors, agencies have reported

"The Avangard is invulnerable to intercept by any existing and prospective missile defence means of the potential adversary," Putin said after the test, adding that the new weapon will enter service next year with the military's Strategic Missile Forces.

The hypersonic missile was among the array of new nuclear weapons that Putin presented in March, saying that Russia had to develop them in response to the development of the US missile defence system that could erode Russia's nuclear deterrent.

He emphasized that no other country currently has hypersonic weapons.

Putin has said that Avangard is designed using new composite materials to withstand temperatures of up to 2,000 degrees Celsius that come from a flight through the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds.

Moscow's Avangard announcement comes less than a month after Washington said it would stop adhering to a decades-old nuclear treaty in 60 days unless Russia returns to compliance with it.

The 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty forced both countries to eliminate ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between approximately 300 and 3,400 miles.

The US says specifically that Russia violated the INF when it developed and fielded the 9M729 missile system in 2017. Russia denies violating the pact.

The intercontinental-range Avangard would not have been covered by the INF. But Wednesday's announcement seems likely to be another thorn in increasingly prickly US-Russia relations.