russian hypersonic missiles & subs

Russia conducted a flight test of a revolutionary hypersonic glide vehicle last week that will deliver nuclear or conventional warheads through advanced missile defenses, U.S. defense officials said. – Washington Free Beacon

Bill Gertz reports: The U.S. is moving to counter Chinese and Russian hypersonic strike vehicles using lasers, the director of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency revealed last week. – Washington Times’ Inside the Ring

Russian attack submarines, the most in two decades, are prowling the coastlines of Scandinavia and Scotland, the Mediterranean Sea and the North Atlantic in what Western military officials say is a significantly increased presence aimed at contesting American and NATO undersea dominance. – New York Times

Russia warned the United States on Wednesday against operating in the Baltic Sea close to its borders, hinting that incidents such as week’s buzzing of a U.S. Navy destroyer would continue – The Hill

Michael O’Hanlon writes: The case for working to build a more stable U.S.-Russian relationship in the future is already unpopular enough in American politics—it must not be conflated with a sympathetic or favorable interpretation of the Russian autocrat. – Brookings Institution
 
Ilan Berman writes: If Putin succeeds with his plan, he will have codified an even stronger grip on the levers of political and policing power through an increasingly monolithic, authoritarian security structure more beholden than ever to the Russian president personally. That makes the name of Putin’s new federal agency something of a misnomer. Its concern, after all, won’t be with protecting the Russian nation as a whole but rather with safeguarding and expanding the power of just one citizen in it. – World Affairs Journal