Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday the Avangard hypersonic missile system poses an asymmetric response to the US Missile Shield and its revolutionary development may be compared with the first artificial Earth satellite, TASS reported.

"We were in the need to come up with either an adequate or asymmetric, but very serious response," Putin said talking to Russian media representatives. "But what kind of response it would be? This is what Avangard stands for. It represents the movement of the maneuverable glide vehicle in the dense layers of the atmosphere," Putin said.

The Avangard is a strategic intercontinental ballistic missile system equipped with a hypersonic glide vehicle.