"Therefore, it's no wonder Russian officials like to talk up Sarmat's capabilities. Russian President Vladimir Putin has called Sarmat a "truly unique weapon" that will "provide food for thought for those who, in the heat of frenzied aggressive rhetoric, try to threaten our country." Dmitry Rogozin, then the head of Russia's space agency, called the Sarmat missile a "superweapon" after its first test flight in 2022."
"The video of the missile failure last week lacks the resolution to confirm whether it was a Sarmat missile or the older-model R-36M2, analysts agree it was most likely a Sarmat. The missile silo used for Friday's test was recently renovated, perhaps to convert it to support Sarmat tests after the destruction of the new missile's northern launch site last year. "Work there began in Spring 2025, after the ice thawed," wrote Etienne Marcuz, an analyst on strategic armaments at the Foundation for Strategic Research."
Russian Sarmat ICBM tests have suffered repeated failures since a largely successful 2022 flight, including a catastrophic explosion that destroyed the missile's northern underground silo. Sarmat is intended to replace the aging R-36M2 strategic ICBM fleet built in Ukraine; Russia labels the RS-28 (Satan II) a "product solely of Russian industry cooperation." A recent low-resolution video likely shows a Sarmat failure, analysts say, and the silo used for the test was recently renovated, possibly to support Sarmat launches after the northern site was lost. Analysts warn another Sarmat failure would damage Russia's medium-term strategic deterrence.
Read at Ars Technica
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