In late June, Sergei Chemezov, chief executive of the country's defence industry giant Rostec, said that Russia had recently started manufacturing the sophisticated S-500 missile systems.
The new S-500 air defence system will specifically be aimed at countering an attack from outer space, Yuri Muravkin, the deputy chief of the Russian Aerospace Forces' anti-aircraft missile troops, told the Russian daily Krasnaya Zvezda.
“Realising the fact that nowadays and in the foreseeable future, the boundaries between air and space are being and will be erased as the aerial enemy gradually becomes an aerospace one, it is safe to say that the S-500 Prometey missile systems entering service is [already] in the pipeline”, Muravkin pointed out.
The remarks come after Sergei Chemezov, CEO of the state-run corporation Rostec, said in an interview with the Russian broadcaster Rossiya 1 in late June that they are “already starting to produce the S-500”.
“It's a more modern complex. I don't want to talk about it now, because it's not in service yet. I think it will appear in the near future”, he added.
Chemezov also said that the S-500 systems are due to be put in service after their tests wrap up. He did not elaborate.
Earlier that month, Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov, for his part, touted “successful preliminary [S-500] tests” which he said “allowed the Russian Defence Ministry to make the decision to shorten the period of the start of serial…
