AT: ! Hypersonics
MacFarquhar 19 (Neil MacFarquhar, New York Times, “Threatening U.S., Putin Promises Russians Both Missiles and Butter,” 2-20-2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/20/world/europe/russia-missile-threat.html)//KMM
Mr. Putin did not criticize President Trump, instead suggesting, as he has in the past, that a secretive “deep state” hobbled the American president. In his speech last year Mr. Putin cataloged an array of new weapons that he said Russia was developing, while animations showed missiles striking the United States. This year he mentioned just a few. This spring, he said, Russia will launch its first nuclear submarine carrying a Poseidon, an unmanned underwater nuclear drone, and will deploy a new Zircon hypersonic missile for the Russian Navy. The missile can fly at nine times the speed of sound with a range of 620 miles, he said. Mr. Putin took up his usual foreign policy cudgel at the end, using most of the 90-minute speech to Russian lawmakers to focus on improving the standard of living in Russia.
This is just fearmongering – no viable use.
Macias ’19 (Amanda Macias; covers national security, defense industry and the intelligence community for CNBC. She joined CNBC's Washington bureau in 2018, she was formerly a correspondent for Business Insider's military and defense team; 03-22-2019; “Vladimir Putin’s so-called missile with unlimited range is too expensive for the Kremlin – and has yet to fly farther than 22 miles”; CNBC; https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/22/putins-missile-with-unlimited-range-is-too-expensive-and-hasnt-flown-more-than-22-miles.html; Accessed 7-21-2019; Shiv)
WASHINGTON – Russian President Vladimir Putin bragged a year ago that his country had a new nuclear-powered missile with unlimited range. But the Kremlin will only produce a few of them because the weapon has yet to complete a successful test and is too expensive to develop, according to sources with direct knowledge of a U.S. intelligence report on the weapons program. Russia’s cruise missile Burevestnik, referred to as “Skyfall” in American intelligence reports, was tested once earlier this year. Prior to that, the weapon was tested four times between November and February in 2018, each resulting in a crash, according to sources who spoke to CNBC on the condition of anonymity. The U.S. assessed that the longest test flight lasted just more than two minutes, with the missile flying 22 miles before losing control and crashing. The shortest test lasted four seconds and flew for five miles. The tests showed that the nuclear-powered heart of the cruise missile failed to initiate and, therefore, the weapon was unable to achieve the indefinite flight Putin had boasted about. The weapon, which has been in development since the early 2000s, is believed to use a gasoline-powered engine for takeoff before switching to a nuclear-powered one for flight, sources explained. One U.S. intelligence report assesses that the Burevestnik will not be combat-ready for another decade, despite Putin’s claim that the “invincible” weapon has a proven capability.
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