Russian President Vladimir Putin, with the help of Strategic Missile Forces Commander Colonel General Sergey Karakayev, very publicly announced the successful test flight of a Sarmat heavy ICBM. “Today at 11:15 a.m., the Strategic Missile Forces launched the latest heavy liquid-fuelled intercontinental ballistic missile, the Sarmat. The launch was successful. The launch mission has been accomplished,” Karakayev told Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to the Kremlin transcript. “The test results confirmed the correctness of the design and technology solutions employed, as well as the missile system’s ability to meet its designated performance specifications.”
“The successful launch results would allow the first missile regiment equipped with the Sarmat system to be placed on combat duty in the Uzhur formation, Krasnoyarsk Territory, by the end of the year,” he added. “The deployment of Sarmat launch systems will significantly increase combat capabilities of Russia’s land-based strategic nuclear forces, enhancing their ability to engage targets and fulfil strategic deterrence objectives.”
“The objective set for this launch has been accomplished. We will now proceed with placing the missiles on combat standby duty,” Karakayev concluded.
Putin congratulated Karakayev and observed that the Sarmat is one of a half-dozen novel strategic systems that Russia developed as a response to the 2002 U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. After that U.S. withdrawal, “we were compelled—and I want to emphasize this, compelled—to reassess how to ensure our strategic security under new conditions and maintain strategic balance and parity. This is precisely why—let me stress this once again—Russia began developing advanced systems that have no equivalents in the world and are designed to penetrate both current and future missile defence systems,” Putin said. Aside from the Sarmat, Putin also named the Avangard hypersonic system, in service since 2019; the Kinzhal air-launched hypersonic missile, in service since 2017; the Poseidon nuclear-armed unmanned underwater vehicle; and the Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile. Putin also named the Oreshnik medium-range hypersonic missile system “which is also capable of carrying nuclear warheads,” and “has been on combat duty since 2025.”
As for the Sarmat, “First, it is the most powerful missile system in the world, comparable in strength to the Voyevoda missile system previously in service, which, as mentioned earlier, was developed during the Soviet era. The combined yield of the payload is more than four times greater than that of any existing Western counterpart,” Putin said. “Secondly, and most importantly, the missile is capable of travelling not only along a ballistic trajectory, but also along a suborbital one. This, and this is the third point, extends its operational range to over 35,000 kilometers while simultaneously doubling the accuracy.” It has been pointed out on other occasions that this would allow the Sarmat to fly a route over the South Pole as well as the North Pole against targets in North America.
“Of course,” replied Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov during a regular press briefing, when asked whether Russia had notified the U.S. and other countries of the test launch. TASS usefully explains that whenever intercontinental ballistic missiles are launched a notification is sent to other countries, in compliance with international agreements, through the National Center for Nuclear Risk Reduction, in order to avoid undue tension.