Almaz-Antey Confirms Development of New-Gen Kalibr Cruise Missile

Russia’s Almaz-Antey Concern, the developer of the famed S-400 missile system, has confirmed that is it working on new-generation Kalibr cruise missile.

“Work to improve the Kalibr is underway. The Ministry of Defense has a high interest in this type of weapon. We plan to significantly improve the flight performance, increase the effectiveness of combat use. At the output, we are waiting for a product that is significantly superior to the current generation,” Yan Novikov, general director of Almaz-Antey, told National Defense magazine during an interview.

The Kalibr has been used by Russia to hit targets in Ukraine. Several unconfirmed reports indicated widespread usage of Kalibr missiles in strikes against strategic and non-combat targets across Ukraine. The opening assault is said to have included about 30 missiles.

Kalibr was developed by Novator Design Bureau and has a claimed range of 4,500km. There are ship-launched, submarine-launched and air-launched versions of the missile, and variants for anti-ship, anti-submarine and land attack use. Some versions have a second propulsion stage that initiates a supersonic sprint in the terminal approach to the target, reducing the time that target's defense systems have to react, while subsonic versions have greater range than the supersonic variants. The missile can carry a warhead weighing up to 500kg of explosive or a thermonuclear warhead.

Russian news outlet topwar.ru reported citing sources that the development of the new Kalibr-M is financed by the military, and the missile itself was included in the state armaments program until 2027.

Russia Destroys Ukrainian Depot with Foreign Weapons

"Kalibr long-range sea-launched precision missiles delivered a strike on the territory of the Zaporozhye aluminum plant to destroy hangars with a large batch of foreign weapons and ammunition supplied by the United States and European countries for Ukrainian troops," Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov said on Wednesday.