The missile expert of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Timothy Wright, has affirmed that Russia’s difficulties to put into operation his new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) with Nuclear Nuclear Capacity RS-28 SARMAT (NATO: SS-X-29/30 Satan II) are because the annexation of Crimea and parts of the DonBass by Russia in 2014 resulted in the loss of the Ukrainian experience on which it depended.
Thus it follows from a report that publishes in which he quotes the expert. He pointed out that, historically, a large part of the facilities and the design and manufacture of intercontinental ballistic missiles were in Ukraine, in particular those related to liquid fuel systems.
For more than 20 years after its independence, the Ukrainian defense industry worked with and next to that of Russia, which came to depend on kyiv’s nuclear and missile technology, according to the media .
The Sarmat is designed to replace the R-36 of the Soviet era, which NATO calls SS-18 “Satan”. His first version entered service for the first time in the 1970s and has been modified since then. The company that designed and maintained it, PivdenMash, known as Yuzhmash in Russia, was in what is now Ukraine. In fact, it was said in November that Russia could have attacked the PivdenMash plant, not confirmed independently confirmed.
After 2014, all the military cooperation between the two countries and the work in the RS-28 ceased to the state center of Makeyev missiles, which also received responsibility for the maintenance of R-36 missiles. But this did not work, according to Maxim Starchak in a 2023 evaluation for Carnegie, which said the test releases had ceased and would be replaced by annual safety controls of the missiles and eyelets R-36.
Wright said that it should have been obvious that Russia had no experience with liquid fuel engines, or in the Makeyev office or at the Moscow thermal Institute of thermal Technology, which, before 2014, were mainly dedicated to the design of solid rocket engines For intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Therefore, Wright pointed out that the choice of liquid fuel for the Sarmat was “very strange”, and added that “it is what the Ukrainians did before for them [los rusos]. That is one of the reasons why many problems are having [con el nuevo misil]”.
The development of SARMAT has been affected by constant delays. The initial tests were scheduled for 2015, but two years were delayed. In addition, the only successful test launch was carried out in 2022. In 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin told the Federal Assembly in his annual speech that Sarmat would exceed all air defense systems and that “there are no analogues in the world and there will not be for a long time. “
