Rusian President Vladimir Putin lauded the test as a “game-changer”, a “big success and victory”.

Russia had just fired its hypersonic ‘Avangard’ ballistic guided missile system. And everything seemed to work fine.

Mr Putin declared Russia to be “untouchable” as no other nation had such “invincible” nuclear-capable missiles can skip through the upper atmosphere at up to 20 times faster than the speed of sound.

Put simply, no defence system exists that can track it fast enough, react fast enough or hit it fast enough to prevent it reaching its target.

The Avangard (Vanguard) glider, which can reportedly change course mid-flight to confuse opponents, hit its target some 6000km from the launch site.

“It was hard and time-consuming work which required breakthrough solutions in principal areas, and all this was done by our scientists, designers and engineers,” Mr Putin said.

What he neglected to say was many of these are now behind bars.

They’re charged with treason.

They’re accused of leaking secrets to other nations.

RETURN OF THE IRON CURTAIN

The Daily Beast reports that at least 10 Roskosmos (Russia’s space agency) researchers had their homes raided and were seized by secret police.

Among the Federal Security Service (FSB) detainees was reportedly 75-year-old Viktor Kudryavtsev, a specialist intrinsicly involved in the construction of two hypersonic weapons systems — Avangard and the air-launched Kinzhal (Dagger).

Mr Kudryavtsev’s lawyer says the top specialist was detained in July. He suffers from diabetes and several other age-related conditions and had only recently recovered from a heart attack at the time of his arrest. He faces 20 years in prison for sending two emails to European colleagues in 2013.

These discussed simulations of one of the key challenges of hypersonic vehicles — the intense friction caused by airflow over its surface during ultra-high speed flight. They were directed at European researchers at the Von Karman Institute working with him at the time on a joint Russian-European Union Roscosmos/ESA space project.

The FSB accuses him of leaking key military secrets to NATO.

His lawyer, Ivan Pavlov, told The Daily Beast that masked uniformed officials subjected Mr Kudryavtsev to “unusually abusive and harmful treatment”.

SPECIAL REPORT: How hypersonic weapons will change warfare forever

“Russian state institutions, including the Foreign Ministry and the Defence Ministry, have lists of secrets, which are also secret, so scientists often have no idea what they are not supposed to speak about,” Mr Pavlov said. “Kudryavtsev could not know back in 2013, when the government approved his research with foreign partners, that the Von Karman Institute would become a number one enemy.”

Details of the other detainees are unknown beyond their involvement in the hypersonic weapons program.

A year ago, Mr Kudryavtsev’s business colleague — 76-year-old designer Vladimir Lapygin — was also arrested and convicted of leaking key hypersonic simulation software to the Chinese.

NUCLEAR STANDOFF

Amid rising tensions with the West, the Vladimir Putin has focused on updating Russia’s military arsenals.

It can no longer afford overwhelming numbers under crushing sanctions imposed over its annexation of Crimea. Instead, the Kremlin is focusing on producing game-changing new ‘super weapons’.

Mr Putin used his state-of-the-nation speech in March 2018 to present an array of new nuclear weapons, including the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle and an underwater drone fitted with an atomic warhead designed to create a devastating tsunami.

Vladimir Frolov, a Moscow-based foreign policy expert, says Mr Putin’s statements — then and now — are part of his efforts to persuade the West to sit down for talks.

“His goal is to win attention, fear and respect from the West, to get the right of veto regarding Western policies,” Mr Frolov said. “He’s pushing for talks on Russia’s conditions and without any unilateral concessions.”

Mr Putin warned that the proposed US exit from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (which the Kremlin is accused of already breaching with some of its new arsenal) would trigger a Russian response.

In an ominous statement this month, he lamented that global fears of a nuclear war have ebbed, leaving the world blind to a rising doomsday threat.

Stanovaya noted that Mr Putin’s talk reflected growing instability in the absence of a common agenda between Russia and the West.

“Moving further along the same track would inevitably lead to the point where it would become more difficult to control the situation regarding nuclear weapons,” Mr Stanovaya said. “Putin believes that nuclear weapons are Russia’s ultimate argument that should influence Western politicians’ thinking.”

SPECIAL REPORT: How hypersonic weapons will change warfare forever

@JamieSeidelNews