MOSCOW (AP) – A new Russian ICBM can carry multiple hypersonic weapons, a senior Russian military officer said on Sunday.
Colonel-General Sergei Karakayev, the commander of the Russian military’s Strategic Missile Forces, said in a televised address that Sarmat’s new ICBM is designed to transport several Avangard hypersonic glide vehicles.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the Sarmat was tested for the first time from the Plesetsk launch site in northern Russia on Wednesday, and its training warheads successfully hit decoy targets at the Kura firing range on the far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula.
The test launch comes amid rising tensions between Moscow and the West over Russian military action in Ukraine and underscores the Kremlin’s emphasis on the country’s nuclear forces.
Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed the Sarmat launch as a major achievement, claiming that the new missile has no foreign equivalent and is capable of penetrating any future anti-missile defenses.
“This truly unique weapon will strengthen the combat potential of our armed forces, reliably ensure Russia’s security from external threats and give food for thought to those who try to threaten our country in the heat of hectic aggressive rhetoric,” Putin said on Wednesday.
The Sarmat is a heavy missile that has been under development for several years to replace the Soviet-made Voyevoda, codenamed Satan by the West, and forms the core of Russia’s nuclear deterrent.
The military has said that the Avangard is capable of flying 27 times the speed of sound and making sharp maneuvers to avoid enemy missile shields on its way to the target.
In anticipation of the Sarmat’s deployment, the new hypersonic vehicle was attached to the existing Soviet-built ICBMs, and the first unit armed with the Avangard entered service in December 2019.
The director and chief designer of the Makeyev rocket manufacturer that developed the Sarmat, Vladimir Degtyar, said in a televised address that its range allows it to fly over the North or South Pole on any trajectory, to any target around the world meet.