Russia uses Zapad 2025 for ‘hypersonic posturing’ with Zircon, Kinzhal drills

Russia said on September 14, 2025, that it had fired a Zircon (or Tsirkon) hypersonic cruise missile at a target in the Barents Sea as part of joint military exercises with Belarus. 

The maneuvers are part of Zapad 2025, large-scale drills taking place from September 12 to 16 in Russia, Belarus, and across the Baltic and Barents Seas. Traditionally held every four years, Zapad was last conducted in 2021, while the 2023 edition was canceled amid Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.  

This edition began just days after at least 19 Russian drones crossed into the airspace of NATO member Poland, an incident Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski called a “test” for the Alliance. 

According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the Northern Fleet frigate Admiral Golovko launched a Zircon missile at a naval target in the Barents Sea.  

“The target was destroyed by a direct hit,” the ministry wrote on its Telegram channel, releasing a video it said showed the missile being launched. 

Zircon launch from Admiral Golovko 

The Zircon is one of several hypersonic weapons Russia has promoted as a new generation of deterrent. Powered by a scramjet engine, the 3M22 Zircon is designed as an anti-ship cruise missile capable of reaching speeds up to Mach 9, or more than 11,000 kilometers per hour. 

Russia first test-fired the missile from the frigate Admiral Gorshkov in July 2021. The ship was formally re-armed with Zircons in early 2023, in a ceremony attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu. 

The Admiral Golovko, commissioned in December 2022, is the first Russian warship designed from the keel up to carry Zircon missiles. In 2023, United Shipbuilding Corporation Chief Executive Alexei Rakhmanov confirmed that Russia’s latest Yasen-M class nuclear submarines would also be equipped with the weapon. 

Moscow has touted hypersonic missiles since Putin’s 2018 state-of-the-nation address, which unveiled a suite of new systems intended to bypass NATO missile defenses. In December 2019, Russia declared its Avangard boost-glide vehicle operational, mounted on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM). 

MiG-31K aircraft conduct Kinzhal patrols 

The Zapad drills also featured long-range flights by MiG-31K interceptors armed with Kh-47M2 Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missiles. A video posted by the Defense Ministry on September 13, 2025, showed two MiG-31Ks departing Severomorsk-1 airbase on the Kola Peninsula, each with a Kinzhal under its fuselage. 

“Crews of MiG-31 aircraft with the Kinzhal aviation complex performed a flight over the neutral waters of the Barents Sea as part of the Zapad-2025 joint strategic exercise,” the ministry said. It added that the aircraft simulated strikes on “critically important enemy targets” before returning with the missiles still attached. 

Unlike newer hypersonic designs such as boost-glide vehicles or scramjet-powered cruise missiles, the Kinzhal is essentially a conventional aeroballistic missile. Derived from the Iskander short-range ballistic missile, it is capable of Mach 10 to 12 performance but follows a predictable high-altitude ballistic trajectory with limited maneuverability.  

Russia has used it repeatedly in Ukraine, where at least one was shot down by a US-made Patriot air defense system over Kyiv in May 2023. 

Analysts often describe Russia’s emphasis on hypersonic systems as a form of strategic posturing rather than a battlefield revolution. The repeated showcasing of Zircon, Kinzhal, and Avangard since 2019 serves as a modern iteration of the old Wunderwaffe propaganda technique, presenting new, supposedly “game-changing” weapons to deter adversaries and boost domestic prestige.

Regional perspective 

Zapad 2025 is being watched especially closely by neighboring NATO states after recent airspace incursions in Poland and Lithuania involving Russian drones. In anticipation of the drills, Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania temporarily closed parts of their airspace, citing heightened security risks.  

Lithuanian Minister of National Defense Dovilė Šakalienė said that this year’s Zapad exercises place particular emphasis on uncrewed systems. 

“The difference from previous training is not only that it is much smaller in scope, but also that this time a lot of attention is paid to the use of drones,” the minister told LRT Radio. 

According to Lithuanian intelligence, about 30,000 soldiers are involved in Zapad 2025, including around 8,000 in Belarus and 4,000 in Kaliningrad. By contrast, Zapad 2021 involved as many as 200,000 personnel, according to Russian figures, making it one of the largest military exercises in the region since the end of the Cold War. The post Russia uses Zapad 2025 for ‘hypersonic posturing’ with Zircon, Kinzhal drills appeared first on AeroTime.

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