Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov has previously said that the S-500 anti-ballistic missile system would be received by the Russian military in the coming years.
Sergei Chemezov, CEO of the defence industry giant Rostec said that Russia has recently started manufacturing cutting-edge S-500 missile systems.
“We are already starting to produce the S-500. This is a more advanced system [than S-400], so I would not like to talk about it now, as it hasn’t been adopted by our military yet”, Chemezov told the broadcaster Rossiya 1 on Sunday.
He also noted that the systems will be delivered to the Armed Forces after weapons tests.
The S-500 Prometey, also known as 55R6M “Triumfator-M”, is a Russian surface-to-air missile/anti-ballistic missile system designed to replace the A-135 missile system currently in use, and supplement the S-400.
The system’s specifications remain officially classified, but according to reports, the S-500 is capable of destroying targets up to 600 kilometres (372 miles) away, and it is also believed to be able to track and simultaneously strike up to 10 ballistic targets moving at speeds of up to 7 kilometres (4 miles) per second (approximately Mach 20).