This week, Russia tested an unstoppable nuclear missile known as the Satan 2, with President Vladimir Putin once again threatening nuclear war.
According to the Kremlin, the Sarmat ICBM was launched in northern Russia on Wednesday, with its practice warheads reaching simulated targets more than 3,500 miles away on the far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula.
The Sarmat is the world’s most powerful missile with the longest range, and it will greatly improve the capability of the country’s strategic nuclear weapons, according to the Defense Ministry.
Putin, who has threatened to use his nuclear arsenal on numerous occasions since invading Ukraine in late February, said the test should give the West pause for thought.
He boasted that the missile possesses the highest tactical and technological attributes, and that it is capable of defeating all existing anti-missile defense systems.
Dmitry Rogozin, the chairman of the Russian state agency Roscosmos, which controls the missile facility that is constructing the Sarmat, praised the superweapon’s test on Wednesday as a gift to NATO.
It was proof, according to Igor Korotchenko, editor in chief of Russia’s National Defense magazine, that the Kremlin was capable of delivering crushing punishment that would end the history of any country that had encroached on Russia’s and its people’s security.
Despite the alarming words, Russia reportedly provided the US advance notice of its test, according to the Pentagon.
“The risk of nuclear conflict, long inconceivable, is again back within the realm of possibility,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres admitted last month.
The Sarmat has been in development for some years as a replacement for the Soviet-made Voyevoda, which is the core of Russia’s nuclear deterrence and was code-named Satan by the West.
According to the Kremlin, it is capable of transporting hypersonic glide vehicles as well as other types of weapons. The Avangard hypersonic vehicle, which is capable of flying 27 times faster than the speed of sound and making quick twists to avoid missile shields, could be one of them.
