One of the symmetrical responses of Russia to the US withdrawal from the Treaty on the Elimination of Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles may be the return of the Pioneer. More precisely, a medium-range intercontinental ballistic missile, easily surmounting 5,000 km.
As reported by the domestic publication Kommersant, citing high-ranking sources in government agencies, the range of the sea-based Caliber-NK missile will be up to 2,600 kilometers when transferred to land. A hypersonic medium-based ground-based missile, according to the publication, will be built on the basis of the 3M22 Zircon rocket and is compatible with launchers for Caliber missiles.
Also, experts do not exclude that the new medium-range hypersonic rocket will be created on the basis of the RS-10 Pioneer missile, which was decommissioned in the USSR after the adoption of the INF. It is noteworthy that all the documentation on it has been preserved. And the design and production enterprises for its creation were based in the Soviet time on the territory of the RSFSR.
So it is possible that the world will still shake from the word "Pioneer".
