MOSCOW. July 8 (Interfax) - The new air defense system Pantsir-SM can hit hypersonic missiles, Col. Yury Muravkin, deputy head of the Aerospace Forces' air and missile defense troops, said.
"The air defense battle of the future, especially on the last line of defense, will no longer be a duel of an air defense unit and the pilot of a tactical fighter, but a battle with machines, smart, precise, acting in large groups, on the entire range of altitudes, at high, often supersonic speeds. That's the kind of air defense battles the system Pantsir-SM is being created for," Muravkin said in an interview with the Russian Defense Ministry's official newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda.
The system will receive "new radar reconnaissance and missile navigation systems, fast computers, a new anti-aircraft missile with a big firing range and increased missile warhead power," he said.
"But the main thing is elements of artificial intellect, which will help not only survive in difficult situations of battles with the air enemy of the future, but also win them," the colonel said.
The system was demonstrated to the general public at the forum ARMY 2019 in Kubinka, Moscow region, in June.