GRU: US plans to deploy cruise and hypersonic missiles in Japan
The United States plans to create two brigades with hypersonic and long-range cruise missiles in the Asia-Pacific region (APR), Igor Kostyukov, head of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) of the Russian General Staff, said on August 15.
"The Pentagon is preparing to deploy two promising multi—sphere brigades in the Asia-Pacific region in 2028, which will be capable of striking with high-precision long-range weapons, including hypersonic missiles with a range of 5.5 thousand km, and Tomahawk ground-based cruise missiles with a launch range of 2.4 thousand km," he said during a speech at the Moscow Conference on International Security.
According to the GRU, Washington plans to deploy its weapons on the Japanese island of Io. The island is located 1.2 thousand km south of Tokyo in the Kazan archipelago.
In early August, the director of the third Asia Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Nikolai Nozdrev, said that Moscow would take into account the possible deployment of medium- and shorter-range US missiles in Japan. In his opinion, Japan wants to serve the military interests of the United States in the Asia-Pacific region as accurately as possible to solve American strategic tasks.
In February of this year, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida announced the country's plans to buy Tomahawk cruise missiles of the latest modification from the United States. Missiles have different capabilities, including the ability to evade interception.
In the same month, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Russia was going to monitor US plans to deploy hypersonic missiles in Japan. The implementation of these plans, according to the diplomat, will mean for Russia a qualitative change in the regional security situation.
In 2022, the head of the Pentagon, Lloyd Austin, said that Washington is interested in strengthening security in the Asia-Pacific region, but at the same time does not plan to impose the experience of NATO or provoke a conflict in the region.
