TASS Russian News Agency:

The Research and Production Association of Machine-Building (now part of Tactical Missiles Corporation) started work on the Avangard hypersonic missile system in 1985, in response to the US Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), Company Honorary CEO and Honorary Chief Designer Gerbert Yefremov told TASS on Tuesday.

“After all-embracing considerations, the proposal of the Research and Production Association of Machine-Building began to be implemented in 1985,” he specified, responding to a question about how and when the work on the Avangard hypersonic missile system proceeded.

The US anti-ballistic missile defense, coupled with massively-deployed nuclear-tipped strike missiles, reinforces the American combat potential. The simultaneous possession of the capabilities for delivering a pre-emptive massive nuclear strike and the systems for intercepting the few remaining enemy missiles becomes destabilizing and inflames tensions in the world, Yefremov said.

“I can say that [then-US President Ronald] Reagan’s SDI alarmed the leadership of the Soviet Union,” he recalled…

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