MOSCOW, Nov. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Russian military has shown U.S. inspectors the Avangard strategic intercontinental missile system with a hypersonic glide vehicle, the Russian Defense Ministry said Tuesday.
"The demonstration of the weapon took place on Nov. 24-26 under the Russian-U.S. Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms," the ministry's Zvezda broadcasting service said.
The Avangard is one of the newest strategic weapons unveiled by Russian President Vladimir Putin in an address to the Russian parliament in March 2018. He said the missile is capable of intercontinental flights at a speed 20 times that of the speed of sound.
In December, Putin said the Avangard missile is invulnerable to current and prospective air defense and anti-missile systems of a potential enemy, after he attended a successful test launch.
During the test launch, the missile covered a distance of over 6,000 km between the Orenburg Region in the Urals and the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Far East before hitting a target.
The Treaty on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, commonly known as New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty or New START, entered into force in 2011 and is expected to last at least until 2021.
