"They (Russia) have the missile, the super-duper-hypersonic missile <…> It goes five times faster than a normal missile," he told the crowd in Bemidji, Minnesota. "We have one that goes much faster, much faster than that."
"Russia got that information from the Obama administration, Russia stole that information. You knew that, you knew that. Russia got the information, and then they built it," the US leader added, TASS reported.
Speaking at a ceremony in the White House in mid-May, Trump said the United States was working on a "super-duper missile" capable of flying 17 times faster than any other missile existing at the moment. He gave no further details.
Lately, senior US officials admitted that the country was trying to catch up with Russia and China in the hypersonic weapon domain. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on December 7, 2019, that his country was "planning catchup" and "investing every dollar it can" in order to gain an advance in hypersonic weapons.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said earlier that now that Moscow had hypersonic weapons there was no point for other countries to spend so much money to deter Russia. He noted that for the first time history Russia had outstripped other countries in terms of developing advanced weapons.
The first missile regiment of Avangard hypersonic cruise missile systems came into service in Russia in late 2019. Apart from that, Russia continues tests of other state-of-the-art weapons, including the Tsirkon hypersonic anti-ship cruise missile and the Sarmat strategic missile system.
