The reference news network reported on September 6. According to the US Newsweek website reported on September 2, after Russia said that it had put an advanced intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) into military service, Russia stepped up its nuclear rhetoric. Putin once said that this missile will make Moscow’s enemies "think twice before you act."
According to the official Russian news agency Tass, Yuri borisov, head of the Russian National Aerospace Group, said that the "sarmat" intercontinental ballistic missile had "taken up the combat mission".
What is "sarmat" intercontinental ballistic missile?
RS-28 sarmat is a liquid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile produced by Russian Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau.
This missile was originally designed to replace the R-36 intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of 9940 miles (1 mile is about 1.6 kilometers). NATO calls R-36 Satan, so its successor model is usually informally called Satan 2.
The RS-28 sarmat missile is 116 feet long and weighs 220 tons. It is said that it can carry up to 15 light nuclear warheads. This missile has a range of 11,000 miles and can strike targets in the United States and Europe.
In contrast, the American LGM-30 Militia intercontinental ballistic missile weighs about 36 tons, has a range of about 8,100 miles and a diameter of 5.5 feet (about 4 feet smaller than that of sarmat).
Sarmat is a missile based on silo. It is believed that its initial launch stage is very short, which means that the monitoring system has little time to track its launch.
On April 20, 2022, Russia test-fired this missile from Plesetsk, Arkhangelsk region, 500 miles north of Moscow. It is reported that the missile hit the target on the kamchatka peninsula, which is 3,700 miles away from the Russian Far East.
As a part of the "next generation" nuclear missile technology, the "sarmat" intercontinental ballistic missile is one of six new Russian strategic weapons announced by Putin in his State of the Union address on March 1, 2018.
After the first successful test launch in April 2022 (the United States has been informed of the test launch in advance), Putin said that the missile has "the highest tactical and technical characteristics and can overcome all modern anti-missile defense means."
He said that the missile is unique in the world and "there will be no similar weapons for a long time to come". Putin also said that this weapon will make those who try to threaten Russia "think twice before you act."
On the Russian -1 Channel’s "60 Minutes" program, Alexei Zhuravlev, chairman of the nationalist party Motherland Party, said that as long as there is a "sarmat" missile, "the British Isles will cease to exist".
However, Pavel Podvig, who is in charge of the research project of "Russian Nuclear Forces" in Geneva, wrote on the X website (the former Twitter website) that in February this year, Russia’s second test-fired "sarmat" intercontinental ballistic missile failed due to a secondary fault. He wrote: "Besides, people have other questions. So before it was confirmed, we returned to a state of success, failure and no deployment. " (Compile/Yang Xuelei)