FROM EIR DAILY ALERT
Russia Is Developing and Deploying Weapons Based on ‘New Physical Principles’
Feb. 15, 2018 (EIRNS)—Russia is currently in the process of developing and deploying weapons systems based on “new physical principles.” Much of the discussion in the Russian media has been on battlefield weapons, but there has also been discussion of ballistic missile defense.
The latest development was announced Aug. 24, 2017, when Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov and Russian Federal Nuclear Center (VNIIEF) Director Valentin Kostyukov signed a contract during the international military-technical forum “Army-2017.” They agreed to establish a research project dubbed “Zadira-16” (zadira translates as “cocky”). According to RT on Aug. 26, 2017,
“The system would be ‘based on new principles of physics,’ a term used in the Russian military for non-traditional weapons systems, from direct energy weapons to anything more exotic.”
The Russian Federal Nuclear Center, which is part of Rosatom, is the laboratory which created the Soviet Union’s first nuclear weapon.
The year before, in August 2016, speaking at a meeting dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the Russian Federal Nuclear Center in Sarov, Borisov spoke about weapons based on new physical principles which were being deployed into the Russian armed forces. Pravda.ru quoted him as saying:
“They are not experimental, but combat weapons that we have already passed into service. The weapons based on new physical principles have become reality today. The technology existed before, but now is the time when they are used in practice.”
Borisov was apparently referring to the technologies that were developed in the Soviet Union. “These high-tech weapons will largely determine the image of the Russian army under the new state arms program before 2025,” he said.
Pravda.ru’s Aug. 3, 2016 article identified weapons based on new physical principles as
“physical processes and phenomena that have not been previously used either in conventional weapons or in weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, chemical, bacteriological). International military experts distinguish between laser, radio-frequency, beam and kinetic (including railgun) weapons.”
High-power laser systems, Pravda.ru writes, had been under development in the Soviet Union since the mid-1950s in the interest of strategic anti-space and missile defense.
Reviewing previous Soviet work in lasers, Pravda.ru referred to tests of the MSU laser system, designed under the “Aydar” project, which were conducted from 1980 to 1985 on the Dixon, an auxiliary ship of the Black Sea Fleet. A space combat laser platform Skif-DM was launched into space in 1987 onboard an Energia carrier rocket.
Sputnik’s Aug. 24, 2016 article reported that the United Instrument Manufacturing Corporation (UIMC) had also said that Russia had developed the first radio-electronic weapons system based on new physical principles.
“The first radio-electronic weapons samples based on new physical principles were first unveiled at the closed Russian Defense Ministry exhibition on the sidelines of the Army-2016 forum last year.”
The UIMC spokesperson told media that the new weapons can strike targets using a directed energy beam, rather than using ammunition.
