Russian frigate with Zircon missiles is likely to enter Iranian ports on courtesy visit - military expert Katkov

A military expert commented on the route of the Admiral Gorshkov frigate with Zircon missiles, which Putin sent sailing on January 4, on Espreso TV. 

“Zircon is a hypersonic missile, as it is called in the Russian Federation, that is, it can reach a hypersonic speed somewhere around 4-5 M (Mach number - the ratio of the local speed of the flow to the local speed of sound - ed.) with the help of a solid fuel engine. This missile accelerates, then loses speed and, like an ordinary rocket, flies at the target at a speed of 1.5-2 M, about 2000 km. They showed during exercises how it hits a target on which there was a camera, so you can see how the missile hits. And if the rocket had a speed of 5 M, then it would not be captured by the cameras any way,” explained the military expert.

Oleh Katkov noted that the Russians announced that the Admiral Gorshkov frigate would go across the Atlantic and the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean.

“The actual route of the frigate is quite clear. Most likely it will go through Gibraltar into the Mediterranean Sea, then to Syria for a service base, after which it will enter the waters of the Indian Ocean. It seems to me that it will enter the Iranian ports, and it will be such a courtesy visit. At one time, Iran sailed around Africa and reached St. Petersburg with a similar visit,” Katkov recalled.