It was in 2018 that Vladimir Putin took the stage to present Russia's new hypersonic weapons. The term "hypersonic" refers to missiles that fly at speeds of 5 mach and higher. At the time, many in the west dismissed Putin's claims and thought it was a bluff. We now know that he wasn't bluffing. Russia is the only country in the world that has deployment-ready hypersonic missiles - not one but three types: Zircons, Kinzhals and Avantguards.

The main military front in today's global conflict, according to Domazet, are the Anti-Ballistic (ABM) batteries which the US has set up on the Poland-Romania axis, and the Russians on the North Pole-Kaliningrad-Crimea-Syria axis. These are defensive systems, conceived to intercept incoming nuclear missiles (though they can easily be converted to offensive nuclear missiles). However, today's ABM systems are only effective against missiles flying at speeds up to mach 3.5 (3.5 x the speed of sound).