Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a new reinforcement of the armed forces. “We will continue to develop and strengthen our armed forces, taking into account potential military threats and risks,” Putin said Tuesday at a meeting with graduates of Russian military academies. The new Sarmat ICBMs, capable of carrying at least ten nuclear warheads and decoys, are expected to be operational by the end of the year.
“One of the main directions is to equip the armed forces with the latest weapons systems, which will shape the combat effectiveness of the army and navy for years and decades to come,” said the Russian president. “In addition to the weapons already tested on the battlefield, the first S-500 air defense complexes have arrived, for which there is no equivalent in the world,” Putin said. The heavy Sarmat ICBM is being tested, he added.
The S-500 is a state-of-the-art anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense system with a range of 500 to 600 kilometers. According to Russian Air and Space Forces chief Sergey Surovikin, the S-500 can take down satellites and hypersonic weapons even in near-Earth cosmos.
Sarmat’s first test flight took place on 20 April. Launched from Plessetzk Cosmodrome in the Arkhangelsk region of northern Russia, the rocket shortly afterwards hit a test target on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s Far East, 6,000 kilometers away. A little later, the head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, announced that 50 pieces of the rocket, which can be equipped with nuclear warheads, would be put into service by the autumn.