Russian Ministry of Defense tested a new missile for S-400 air defense system, Lenta.ru reports with reference to Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the aerospace defense forces, Major General Kirill Makarov.

The new missile will almost double the system’s range. «After putting into service the new missile, which is undergoing state testing at the moment, the range of S-400 air defense system will reach 400 km,» the General said. He added that current configuration of the system allows it to destroy targets at a distance of 250 km or less.

In the network of state testing the missile was launched and successfully hit a target at a distance close to its maximum range.

S-400 air defense system (Russian reporting name – Triumph, NATO reporting name — SA-21 Growler) was put into service in 2007. At present Russia operates 19 divisions of S-400 systems (152 launchers).

Triumph is the medium- and long-range air defense systems. It is designed to counter all the aerial and space attacks (including all the advanced weapons and the ones featuring stealth technologies). The system is able to destroy missiles, including tactical and ballistic ones, and any types of aircraft, including hypersonic ones.

One system may attack 36 targets simultaneously (72 missiles, 2 ones for each target). At that the system is able to use different types of missiles and allows creating any defense scheme.