The Sarmat is just Russia's replacement for their old Ukrainian made Voevoda ICBMs - with shelf life only up to 2023 - but it keeps blowing up - nothing special - US is replacing its ICBMs too
TEXT ON GRAPHIC
Russia’s RS-28 SARMAT - one successful flight.
Two failures, the second a big explosion.
Replacement for Russia’s Ukrainian made Voevoda ICBMs - their shelf life ended in 2023
Nothing special. US is also developing a new ICBM as older models get outdated
It seems Russia finds it hard to develop a new ICBM by itself. Lots of warheads on one ICBM make it less flexible.
Photo from: Russia’s Sarmat Test Failure: Implications for the Strategic Balance
Deploying does NOT mean any plans to use them. All their older ICBMs are ALREADY deployed. And -the main reason that Russia wants to develop a new nuke now is because it depended on Ukraine to service its older generation ICBMs.
it is a replacement for the Ukrainian built Voevoda ICBM which is only guaranteed to work through to 2023
naturally enough Ukraine is not going to help Russia maintain or build ICBMs any more.
It seems Russia finds it hard to build a new ICBM by itself as they keep exploding, with only one successful launch so far, a problem they need to solve.
Having lots of warheads on one ICBM makes it less rather than more flexible.
This has NOTHING TO DO WITH THE UKRAINE WAR. Russia announced this upgrade on 1st March 2018, nearly 4 years before the war with Ukraine started.
No country has ever had first strike capabilities, to actually win with nukes. They just are not powerful enough for that, NATO's conventional force would remain vastly superior to Russia's.
The SARMAT is a new design of ICBM, with the main difference, being more warheads per ICBM.
Russia will have the same total of less than 1550 deployed nukes under New START, which it has only suspended and still complies with. It is not clear why Russia wants to have fewer ICBMs for the same total as it seems less flexible
it is a replacement for the Ukrainian built Voevoda ICBM which is only guaranteed to work through to 2023
naturally enough Ukraine is not going to help Russia maintain or build ICBMs any more.
It seems Russia finds it hard to build a new ICBM by itself as they keep exploding, with only one successful launch so far, a problem they need to solve.
Having lots of warheads on one ICBM makes it less rather than more flexible.
The US continues to say it sees no reason to change its strategic defence posture.
Russia's upgrade is a bit puzzling. It packs more nukes into one missile, it means it can have the equivalent of 3 of the UK's Trident missiles in one missile - but why? Why not give them separate missiles. It's 'far too big for it to be sensible to send a single nuke that big.
So the reason isn't clear except just bragging rights about having the largest ICBM.
The hypersonic re-entry makes more sense - but all re-entry is hypersonic - all they mean is it is more able to change direction as it re-enters.
The US with its upgrade makes more sense, focusing on
increased accuracy
extended range
improved reliability
enhanced security
Details from here:
. It’s Official: the U.S. Air Force is Getting a New ICBM
So it is all very normal, launching ICBM tests, upgrading ICBMs and the tests failing. Just business as usual in the defense industry. It's only hitting the news because of the Ukraine war and because Russia is doing it.
Few people have noticed the news about the US upgrading its ICBMs. You wouldn't hear much in the news about things like this from Russia either if it weren't for the Ukraine war,.
DEPLOYED THE SARMAT AFTER ONLY ONE SUCCESSFUL TEST AND ONE FAILED TEST
At that point, it seems, the Kremlin decided it could wait no longer, and the missile was put into service despite having been tested successfully only once. Even now, much remains unknown about the missile. Can Sarmat carry a hypersonic glide vehicle or multiple warheads able to separate? Can it evade missile defenses and hit its target at a distance of 18,000 kilometers? There are no answers to these questions: Russia appears to have put a missile into service without knowing its full capabilities.
…
In these desperate times [for the industry], it appears that the Kremlin has decided to prioritize its nuclear deterrent over the need to establish the Sarmat’s exact in-flight capabilities.
Then in September 2024 it failed again.
QUOTE On 24 September 2024, Russia conducted a test of the RS-28 Sarmat heavy liquid-fuelled intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) which was likely a catastrophic failure. Satellite imagery showed heavy damage to the Plesetsk Cosmodrome as well as fires in the woods surrounding the test site.
Russia’s Sarmat Test Failure: Implications for the Strategic Balance
Why Russia lost much of its ICBM expertise when Ukraine split from the Soviet Union
It’s Ukraine that built Russia’s ICBMs when it was part of the Soviet Union and still has the expertise and the components to maintain them.
Ukraine used to be the area of the Soviet Union that built the Soviet Union's only four aircraft carriers (all four sold or scrapped now) and its ICBMs and also many of its tanks, with a big disused tank factory in Kharkiv oblast - and it also maintained its nukes and had many of the Soviet Union's nukes at the break-up of the Soviet Union.
Ukraine joined the non-proliferation treaty in 1994 dismantling the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world after the US and Russia.
A successor of the former Soviet Union, Ukraine acceded to the NPT as a non-nuclear weapons state in December 1994. This meant not only relinquishing the right to develop nuclear weapons in the future, but also physically dismantling and removing the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal that Ukraine had inherited from the Soviet Union: 1,240 nuclear warheads arming 176 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) including their extensive launch control infrastructure, 700 nuclear cruise missiles arming 44 strategic bombers, and nearly 3,000 tactical nuclear weapons, including artillery shells, gravity bombs, and mines.
. Ukraine and the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
It keeps to it with regular monitoring.
In 1994 Ukraine gave its nukes back to Russia in return for assurances by Russia, China, USA and the UK that they would give Ukraine whatever it needs to protect itself if it was ever invaded.
Ukraine had a contract to extend the shelf life of the Voevoda ICBM up to 2014, but broke off that contract when Russia invaded Crimean in 2014, leaving Russia without anyone with the skills to service its older model ICBMs.
In 2018 the Russians launched a Voevoda ICBM and confirmed it had a shelf life of another 5 years which takes you to 2023. But they don't know how to service it.
Though that doesn't mean that they will all fail now, it means that they are increasingly unsure if they will work.
So they need a new ICBM fast. But they have to make it without Ukraine. The SARMAT is their solution.
But it seems they are not very good at building ICBMs by themselves without Ukraine's help. Their new SARMAT keeps blowing up and only had one successful launch.
ALL ICBMs have multiple warhead capability. The SARMAT has more warheads than most - but the US hasn't built one like this because it doesn't see the point. They have the same number of total warheads on all their ICBMs but putting them on fewer ICBMs like Russia is doing gives less flexibility.
Russia will need to solve this problem of exploding Sarmats some time soon. It's ICBMs likely can last a few more years but are not guaranteed to continue to work beyond 2023.
For some reason Russia has decided to start deploying them which just means to replace their existing older ICBMs built by Ukraine - even though it doesn't yet have enough tests to be sure they can launch without exploding first.
That is the whole story. It’s not clear why they think a new likely to explode ICBM is a good replacement for an old reliable ICBM that has exceeded its shelf life by one year.
Russia broke that agreement by invading Ukraine. China didn't honor it. The UK did and the USA did under Biden but not clear yet if it will under Trump.
That is why Ukraine wants to join NATO after the war is over since individual security arrangements like the Budapest Memorandum are clearly far less reliable than NATO in the long term.
. Here's The Six Super Weapons Putin Unveiled During Fiery Address
So the Sarmat is an upgrade of their ICBMs which they announced long ago and is not a surprise to anyone.
Just a deterrent - can’t make anything like a tsunami - since the start of the cold war, no country has ever had the capability to win a war by using nukes first
Like any other nuke the Sarmat is just a deterrent.
BLOG: How nuclear deterrents work - like a bodyguard - their job is to prevent fights
Russia makes absurd claims about its weapons for instance that by dropping a nuke in the sea next to Britain it could flood all of Britan with a giant tsunami.
This is NONSENSE.
A nuke can't set off a tsunami. That is a lie told by Putin to scare people It makes no sense to drop a nuke in the sea. It does create a big splash if dropped right next to the land but the damage is far less than for an air burst. About 1% of the damage from an air burst.
This story was originally shared for a nuclear torpodo they were developing but now it’s also used for the Sarmat. You can be sure they would never target the sea with a Sarmat as it would just create a very localized large splash.
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https://apnews.com/article/deserters-awol-ukraine-russia-war-def676562552d42bc5d593363c9e5ea0
So this missile is faulty and they decided to throw it into their stockpile despite poor tests?