"The chancellor and the president voiced concern about Russian President Putin's latest remarks on arms development and its negative impact on international arms control efforts," said a statement by the German chancellery.

Putin unveiled the new arsenal Thursday in a state of the nation address, and showed a series of video montages of missiles crossing mountains and oceans, heading over the Atlantic before striking the US eastern seaboard.

The United States on Thursday accused Moscow of openly breaching Cold War-era treaties by developing what Putin called a new generation of "invincible" hypersonic weapons and submarines.

Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said the German government was "worried about the entire security policy of Russia".

This ranged from "the blatant violations of international law through the annexation of the Crimea ... to threatening behaviour against neighbouring states to the deliberately undermining arms control agreements", he said.

On the Syria conflict, Seibert said that "in view of the truly appalling situation of the Syrian civilian population, there is really no reason to be proud of certain weapons developments or the use of certain Russian weapons on the ground".