Seen by the US military as a threat for years, Russia's Yasen-class submarines are now on track to get hypersonic missiles

• Russia's Yasen-class submarines have long been seen as a tough challenge for the US Navy.
• They are quiet and able to carry torpedoes as well as Kalibr and Oniks cruise missiles.
• A Russian shipbuilding official said that work is underway to arm them with Zircon hypersonic missiles.

The head of a top Russian shipbuilder revealed Monday that work is underway to arm some of Russia's most troubling guided-missile submarines with Zircon hypersonic weapons.

Following the fielding of the weapon aboard a Russian navy frigate, "multi-purpose nuclear submarines of the Yasen-M project will also be equipped with the Zircon missile system," Alexei Rakhmanov, general director of the United Shipbuilding Corporation, told the state-run RIA news agency, confirming certain long-standing expectations.

He added that "work in this direction is already underway."

Russia's Yasen-class nuclear-powered cruise-missile submarines are quiet, difficult to track, heavily armed, and able to conduct attacks against land- and sea-based targets. The first sub of the class, the Severodvinsk, was commissioned late in 2013 following decades of design, development, and construction that started during the Cold War.

The following year, US Navy Rear Adm. Dave Johnson, then Naval Sea Systems Command's program executive officer for submarines, said at a naval symposium that the US would be "be facing tough potential opponents," adding that "one only has to look at the Severodvinsk."

The subs built after Severodvinsk are part of the Yasen-M sub-class and have an updated design with more advanced features, such as new quieting technology, new sensors, and a quieter nuclear reactor.

Years later, top US defense officials continue to see them as a challenge.

Armed with ten torpedo tubes and eight vertical launch system cells able to fire both P-800 Oniks or 3M-14 Kalibr missiles, these submarines are already considered formidable undersea threats, and the addition of the Zircon, sometimes spelled Tsirkon, missile is only expected to increase that threat.

US Air Force Gen. Glen VanHerck, head of US Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, said in 2021 that Russia was fielding capabilities able "to hold the homeland at risk," including some "very quiet submarines" such as the Yasen-class submarines, which the US and NATO call the Severodvinsk class.

The Russian Yasen-class submarines "are designed to deploy undetected within cruise-missile range of our coastlines to threaten critical infrastructure during an escalating crisis," the commander said a year later in congressional testimony.

He added that the "challenge" posed by these Russian submarines "will be compounded in the next few years as the Russian Navy adds the Zircon hypersonic cruise missile to the Severodvinsk's arsenal."

At that time, Russia had only two Yasen-class subs, but their numbers have grown. Three boats are already active, one is going through trials, and Rakhmanov, the senior shipbuilding official who spoke to Russian media, said on Monday that the fifth Yasen-class submarine will be launched later this year.

'A promising weapon' that's not unchallenged

Russian President Vladimir Putin revealed the development of the scramjet-powered 3M22 Zircon hypersonic missile in 2019 — the year before the weapon's first test aboard the Project 22350 frigate Admiral Gorshkov — and claimed that the missile could reach speeds of Mach 9 and strike targets more than 600 miles away.

It is unclear if the missile can actually achieve the stated capabilities.

In 2021, following a series of weapon tests aboard the Admiral Gorshkov, Russia test-fired a Zircon missile from the lead boat of the Yasen class, the Severodvinsk, firing once while surfaced and another while submerged.

It may still be some time before Russia's Yasen-class submarines deploy with hypersonic weapons, but the Admiral Gorshkov set sail earlier this year on a deployment that took it into the Atlantic Ocean armed with Zircon hypersonic missiles.

As the warship deployed, Putin said Russia will continue to develop weapons to "guard Russia's security in the coming decades" and called the Zircon "a promising weapon."

Hypersonic missiles like the Zircon are a key area of competition between the US and rivals Russia and China, and all three are racing to field this technology.

The weapons are highly sought-after because they are difficult to counter with existing air and missile defenses due to their high speeds of at least five times the speed of sound and, more importantly, their maneuverability and low, unpredictable flight paths.

The US Navy has been developing its own hypersonic weapon called the Conventional Prompt Strike weapon, which uses the Common Hypersonic Glide Body jointly developed by the Army and the Navy.

USS Zumwalt, the lead ship of a class of stealthy destroyers, departed San Diego earlier this month for Pascagoula, Mississippi, home of Ingalls Shipbuilding, to "receive technology upgrades including the integration of the Conventional Prompt Strike weapons system," the Navy said in a statement.

The sea service argued that the "upgrades will ensure Zumwalt remains one of the most technologically advanced and lethal ships in the US Navy."

The Navy has indicated that it intends to deploy hypersonic weapons aboard Zumwalt-class destroyers by 2025, replacing their impotent deck guns, the twin 155mm Advanced Gun System, and then deploy them on its Virginia-class attack submarines by the end of this decade.