A Russian iercoineal ballistic missile was fired from an underground storage facility in the coury’s southern plains on Friday in a planned test to deliver a test warhead to a remote area nearly 4,000 miles away. However, this rocket could not even reach the height of 4000 feet. The Russian military has kept quiet about the incide, but the sound of the missile’s crash could be heard for miles around the Dombarovsky Air Base in Orenburg, near the Russian-Kazakhstan border. Then a video was published by a Russian blog on Telegram and widely spread on other social networks; The video shows that the missile veered off course immediately after launch, turned upside down, lost power and crashed a short distance from the launch site.
According to Pavel Podwig, a senior researcher at the United Nations Disarmame Research Institute in Geneva, the missile ejected a fragme before hitting the ground, possibly as part of the payload launch operation. The fall of the Russian missile caused the formation of a fireball and a poisonous red-brown cloud, which is a sign of the toxic combination of hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide; This combination is used to fuel the most powerful Russian iercoineal ballistic missiles. Satellite images taken since Friday show a crater and burn near the launch site. Analysts say the circumstances of the launch suggest Russia may have been testing the RS-28 Sarmat missile, a weapon designed to reach targets more than 11,000 miles (18,000 kilometers) away and considered the world’s longest-range missile.
Russia’s unusable weapon
According to the Ceer for Strategic and Iernational Studies, the Sarmat missile is Russia’s next-generation heavy iercoineal ballistic missile capable of carrying up to 10 large nuclear warheads, a combination of warheads and destructive systems, or high-altitude hypersonic warheads. In other words, this missile is an apocalyptic weapon designed to be used in an all-out nuclear war between Russia and the United States. So it’s no surprise that Russian officials are eager to talk about the capabilities of their new missile. Vladimir Putin has described the Sarmat missile as a unique weapon that will strike terror io the hearts of those who try to threaten Russia with aggressive rhetoric. Dmitry Rogozin, the head of the coury’s space agency at the time, called the rocket a superweapon after its first test flight in 2022.
To date, the Sarmat missile has failed many times. The missile’s first comprehensive test flight in 2022 apparely we well, but since then the program has suffered a series of setbacks, most notably last year’s catastrophic explosion that destroyed the missile’s underground launch site in northern Russia. The Sarmat missile will replace Russia’s aging fleet of R-36M2 strategic iercoineal ballistic missiles, which are manufactured in Ukraine. According to the announceme of the Ministry of Defense of Russia, the RS-28 missile, which is sometimes called Satan 2, is a product of Russian industrial cooperation. Of course, the viral video lacks the necessary resolution to show the exact model of the missile, but analysts believe that the missile is most likely a Sarmat. The missile silo that was used for Friday’s test was recely rebuilt. This was probably done after the destruction of this place last year, to support Russia’s new missile tests.
Etienne Marcus, a strategic weapons analyst at the French Ceer for Strategic Research, says the work to rebuild the said silo began this spring, after the ice melted. “The immediate renovation of the missile silo in Dombarovsky strengthens the hypothesis that last week’s incide was related to the Sarmat missile and not the R-36M2, the last test of which was carried out more than 10 years ago,” Markus wrote on the X social network. Markus coinued: “If this is indeed another failure of the Sarmat project, it will be very bad for the medium-term future of the Russian defense industry.” The aging R-36M2 missiles, which carry a significa portion of Russia’s strategic nuclear warheads, are likely to be phased out later. These missiles were kept by Ukraine uil 2014, but now it is not clear where they will be located.”
Padwig, a UN researcher who also runs the Russian Nuclear Forces blog, agrees with Markus. “Given that the R-36M2 missile will soon be phased out, it is highly unlikely that Russia would wa to test it. Therefore, the downed missile was the Sarmat,” he wrote on his website. This failure creates new uncertaiy about the readiness of Russia’s nuclear arsenal. If this was indeed a test of one of Russia’s older iercoineal ballistic missiles, the result would raise questions about the wear and tear of its compones. With a test flight of Russia’s new missile more likely, its crash could be the latest in a series of problems that have delayed its ery io the coury’s missile fleet since 2018.
While the Sarmat missile test has been hampered, Russia’s military resources have been diverted to the war against Ukraine, a war in which Russian aircraft, artillery, drones and troops have been used. Referring to his strategic arsenal, Putin has warned against increasing involveme of the United States or Europe in the war. But in reality, the process of modernizing Russia’s nuclear forces has stalled, while the Kremlin is busy regrouping for war with Ukraine. Russia also has a lighter version of ICBMs that can carry a single warhead or a small number of MIRVs (multiple targeting and re-ery vehicles); Each of these missiles has its own nuclear weapon. When launched, the Sarmat missile is capable of delivering large numbers of nuclear warheads to dista targets.
Russia plans to test the weapon, one of the coury’s smaller iercoineal ballistic missiles, next week, according to airspace warnings issued on Monday asking pilots to stay clear of the Yars missile’s flight path. Like the United States, Russia regularly tests its missile arsenal to ensure its nuclear forces are ready for war. Days before Russia’s iercoineal ballistic missile test, the US Air Force se at least one RC-135S Cobra Ball surveillance aircraft to Alaska, a three-hour flight from Russia’s missile strike range in Siberia. According to the US military, the aircraft is equipped with optical and electronic sensors to monitor ballistic missile tests and collect data that is importa to confirm compliance with the arms treaty and develop US strategic defense and missile defense concepts.
In his speech last moh, Putin announced that the Sarmat missile will undergo combat tests before the end of this year and will later eer Russia’s missile fleet. If the missile launched on Friday is a Sarmat, it is clear that Russian leaders cannot cou on it for military use. Even before last week’s incide, some analysts had poied to the possibility of canceling the said missile program and relying on smaller Russian iercoineal ballistic missiles. Unlike the Sarmat, many of the coury’s other land- or sea-based ballistic missiles have the advaage of mobile launchers. “It’s better to cancel the Sarmat missile project forever,” a Russian researcher in Moscow said on social media on Saturday.
