The missile that was supposed to terrorize Russia’s enemies failed again

A Russian intercontinental ballistic missile was fired from an underground storage facility in the country’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 incident, 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 Disarmament Research Institute in Geneva, the missile ejected a fragment 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 intercontinental 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 Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Sarmat missile is Russia’s next-generation heavy intercontinental 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 into the hearts of those who try to threaten Russia with aggressive rhetoric. Dmitry Rogozin, the head of the country’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 apparently went 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 intercontinental ballistic missiles, which are manufactured in Ukraine. According to the announcement 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 recently 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 Center 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 incident 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 continued: “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 significant portion of Russia’s strategic nuclear warheads, are likely to be phased out later. These missiles were kept by Ukraine until 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 want to test it. Therefore, the downed missile was the Sarmat,” he wrote on his website. This failure creates new uncertainty about the readiness of Russia’s nuclear arsenal. If this was indeed a test of one of Russia’s older intercontinental ballistic missiles, the result would raise questions about the wear and tear of its components. 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 entry into the country’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 involvement 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-entry 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 distant targets.

Russia plans to test the weapon, one of the country’s smaller intercontinental 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 intercontinental ballistic missile test, the US Air Force sent 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 important to confirm compliance with the arms treaty and develop US strategic defense and missile defense concepts.

In his speech last month, Putin announced that the Sarmat missile will undergo combat tests before the end of this year and will later enter Russia’s missile fleet. If the missile launched on Friday is a Sarmat, it is clear that Russian leaders cannot count on it for military use. Even before last week’s incident, some analysts had pointed to the possibility of canceling the said missile program and relying on smaller Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles. Unlike the Sarmat, many of the country’s other land- or sea-based ballistic missiles have the advantage of mobile launchers. “It’s better to cancel the Sarmat missile project forever,” a Russian researcher in Moscow said on social media on Saturday.