Washington and Moscow have been expanding their defence capabilities as some Cold War-era arms control agreements collapsed during worsening of Russia’s ties with the West.

Last year Russia deployed its first hypersonic nuclear-capable missiles, while the Pentagon has a goal of fielding hypersonic capabilities in the early to mid-2020s.

“It’s very likely that we will have means to combat hypersonic weapons by the time the world’s leading countries have such weapons,” Putin was quoted as saying by the RIA news agency.

While Russia and the United States had broadly the same number of nuclear weapons, Putin said Moscow was ahead in advanced arms development.