The 3M22 Tsirkon is a part of a long-standing modernization effort by the Russian Navy.
The Russian Navy is arming its attack submarines with a first-of-its-kind submarine-launched hypersonic missile engineered to travel 600 miles at Mach 8 speeds toward ship targets at sea as well as fixed land targets within range.
The addition of the missile, which is now reported to be in testing for deployment, is now taking place as part of Russia’s Project 949AM submarine modernization effort arming the Irkutsk submarine for hypersonic attack by 2023, according to a report from Russia’s TASS news agency. The new missile is called the 3M22 Tsirkon, according to the TASS report.