Russia’s news agencies are reporting that the new intercontinental ballistic missile system is now operational, said Russian space agency chief Yuri Borissov.
Moscow has commissioned an advanced intercontinental ballistic missile that Russian President Vladimir Putin said would cause Russia’s enemies to “think twice” about their threats, the head of the country’s space agency reported.
According to Russian news agency reports on Friday, Yuri Borisov, the head of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, said that Sarmat missiles had “taken over the combat mission.”
“The Sarmat strategic system has assumed combat readiness,” state news agency TASS quoted the Roscosmos chief as saying.
“According to expert estimates, the RS-28 Sarmat is capable of carrying a MIRV warhead weighing up to 10 tons to any location in the world, over both the North and South Poles,” it said Report from TASS.
John Kirby, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said Friday he was unable to confirm reports that Russia had put the Sarmat on combat alert.
Putin said in February that the Sarmat – one of several advanced weapons in Russia’s arsenal – would soon be ready for use.
In 2022, about two months after Russian troops invaded Ukraine, Putin said the Sarmat would “reliably ensure Russia’s security from external threats and give pause to those who try to threaten our country in the heat of aggressive rhetoric.” “.
The Sarmat is an underground missile stationed in a silo and, according to Russian authorities, can carry up to 15 nuclear warheads. However, the US military estimates their capacity at ten warheads.
The missile, known to NATO military allies by the codename “Satan,” reportedly has a short initial launch phase, giving monitoring systems little time to track its launch.
Weighing more than 200 tons, the Sarmat has a range of about 18,000 km (11,000 miles) and was designed to replace the older generation of Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICMBs) from the 1980s.
Russia test-fired the Sarmat missile in April 2022 in the country’s Plesetsk region, about 800 km (nearly 500 miles) north of Moscow, and the fired missiles hit targets on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s far east.