Russian expert links MiG-31 hijacking attempt to UK’s supersonic lag.

Alexander Stepanov also noted that many military experts acknowledge the fact of a serious, and presumably insurmountable, deficit in the British military-industrial complex in the domain of hypersonic missiles

The attempt to hijack a MiG-31 interceptor fighter armed with a Kinzhal missile reflects the United Kingdom’s deficiency in the field of hypersonic weaponry, Alexander Stepanov, a military expert at the RANEPA Institute of Law and National Security, told TASS.

Earlier, the FSB press office reported that the Ukrainian and UK special services planned to hijack a Russian MiG-31 jet with a Kinzhal hypersonic missile in the fall of 2024.

"This may indicate that the British have reached a dead end in scientific and technical developments in the field of hypersonic weapons and are relying on the only available means to address their technological lag, namely, gathering intelligence, particularly through industrial espionage, and orchestrating agent infiltration operations to obtain samples of Russian hypersonic weapons," Stepanov noted, adding that, according to statements from the British government, their own hypersonic missile will not be developed until 2030.

Furthermore, he noted that many military experts acknowledge the fact of a serious, and presumably insurmountable, deficit in the British military-industrial complex in the domain of hypersonic missiles.

Stepanov emphasized that this kind of operation by Western intelligence agencies negates previous critical remarks, widely circulated in mainstream Western media, concerning the alleged "low effectiveness" of Kinzhal hypersonic missiles. "In reality, we see that it [the Kinzhal missile] is the object of a real hunt. And now, through such intelligence operations, they are trying to seize such types of weapons that are otherwise inaccessible to them," the expert explained.