“Burevestnik”. Russia successfully tests nuclear missile “never seen before”, says Putin

The new nuclear-capable and propelled missile “is a unique weapon that no other country in the world has,” said Vladimir Putin. The USA and the USSR worked on nuclear-powered missiles during the Cold War, but ended up abandoning the projects, considered too dangerous.

The Russian Armed Forces successfully tested the Burevestnika new cruise missile with nuclear capability and propulsiondesigned to have “unlimited reach” and bypass existing defenses.

The successful test of the new Russian weapon, whose development was announced in 2018, brings the date of its delivery to the country’s Armed Forces closer, said the president Vladimir Putin, in statements released on Sunday.

The announcement, which appears after years of Burevestnik testingis part of the strategy of nuclear deterrence of the Kremlin, which has resisted Western pressure for a ceasefire in Ukraine and strongly warned the United States and other NATO allies against authorizing deep attacks on Russian territory with Western weapons of greater range, notes .

Chief of Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, General Valery Gerasimovinformed Vladimir Putin that the test took place on Tuesday, and that the missile traveled 14 thousand kilometers over approximately 15 hours of flight. But “this is not the limit” of the new Russian missile, the military officer highlighted.

“The technical characteristics of the Burevestnik missile allow it to be used with guaranteed accuracy against highly protected targetsregardless of the distance”, declared Gerasimov, quoted by .

“It is, in fact, a unique weapon, which no other country in the world has”, Putin said during a visit to one of the command centers of the joint grouping of the Russian Armed Forces.

A video released by the Kremlin showed Putin, dressed in camouflage fatigues, receive the report from Valery Gerasimov about the Burevestnik, or “storm petrel” in Russian.

NATO, which gave Burevestnik the code name Heavy rainhas little information about the missile, but many Western experts have been skeptical about the missile. reliability of its nuclear propulsion.

When Putin announced in his 2018 State of the Nation address that Russia was working on this weapon, he stated that it would have a unlimited rangewhich would allow you travel around the globe without being detected by anti-missile defense systems.

Many observers argue that a missile of this type could be difficult to handle andpose an environmental threat. The United States and the Soviet Union worked on nuclear-powered missiles during the Cold War, but ultimately abandon projects, considering them too dangerous.

In August 2019, a Russian missile suffered an explosion, during tests at a naval firing range, which killed five nuclear engineers and two soldiers, and resulted in a brief increase in radioactivity. Russian authorities never identified the weapon involved, but the US said it was the Burevestnik.

Kirill Dmitrieva senior adviser to Putin when the video was released, said his delegation informed American colleagues about the “successful test” of Burevestnik, which he called a “absolutely new class” of weaponry.

Earlier this week, Putin addressed strategic nuclear forces exercises from Russia, which included training missile launches. According to the Kremlin, the maneuvers involved all components of Moscow’s nuclear triadincluding intercontinental ballistic missiles that were fired from northwestern Russia and from a submarine in the Barents Sea.

The exercises, which also involved Tu-95 strategic bomberswhich fired long-range cruise missiles, aimed to test the capabilities of military command structures, the Kremlin said in a statement released on Wednesday.