Russia’s 200-Ton ‘Monster Missile’ RS-28 Sarmat ICBM That Can Fire Hypersonic Weapons Enters Serial Production

By
Sakshi Tiwari
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The RS-28 Sarmat Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM), which Russia has projected as the “world’s deadliest missile,” has now entered serial production.

The RS-28 Sarmat is a Russian silo-based missile system armed with a heavy liquid-propellant orbital intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

The General Director of the Makeyev State Missile Center, Vladimir Degtyar, said in an interview recently that the serial production of the latest R-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile has started in Russia.

According to Degtyar, the R-28 Sarmat missile will boost the Russian military’s combat capability over the next 40 to 50 years to ensure the nation’s security. He said this ICBM would become the primary means of the nuclear deterrent and a guarantee of preserving peace in the current geopolitical environment.

This announcement comes at a time when Russia is allegedly reeling through difficult times due to a shortage of missiles in its arsenal. With Ukraine having retaken some of the territories that Moscow occupied in the initial weeks of the operations, there’s a significant need to hold on to other regions in the south.

Last week, the state media reported that Russia had successfully tested the R-28 ICBM silo.

“The flight tests of the Sarmat missile system have been successfully carried out. The Yars road-mobile missile system has also proven its capabilities by launches at the Plesetsk state testing spaceport”, the Defense Ministry said in a statement.

This shows the alacrity with which Russia has developed, tested, and manufactured the monster missile.

The first test of Sarmat was conducted in April 2022, and a month later, in May, the former Roscosmos chairman Dmitry Rogozin, a close aide of Russian President Vladimir Putin, stated that around 48 Satan-2 missiles were in “mass production” and would soon go into combat service.

“Sarmat” (RS-28) will replace “Voevoda” RS- 20V, the most powerful strategic missile in existence. The development of RS-28 Sarmat was started more than a decade ago, in 2011.

The new missile will be able to penetrate enemy missile defense systems and have the ability to travel through both the North and South Poles to deliver multiple reentry vehicles to any location on Earth.

Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile – Press and Information Office of the Defence Ministry of the Russian Federation

The Sarmat missile system will join the Strategic Missile Forces once the test program is completed. The head missile regiment in the Uzhur missile formation in the Krasnoyarsk Territory is already getting ready to be rearmed with this new missile system.

The induction of this missile in service would further create anxieties in the West about Russian nuclear fear-mongering.

Earlier this year, Russian state television had simulated a nuclear attack on three European capitals, including Paris, Berlin, and London, stating that the Sarmat ICBM with a nuclear warhead would destroy these three cities in less than 200 seconds.

Why Is Sarmat A Monster Missile?

According to Russian media, the ‘most dangerous’ missile on the planet, the RS-28 Sarmat, can deliver a multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) warhead weighing up to 10 tons anywhere in the world.

As per information made public during the Army-2019 exhibition, the Sarmat IICBM’srange is 18,000 kilometers, and the launch weight is more than 200 tons, of which 178 tons is fuel. The missile measures 3 meters in diameter and 35.5 meters in length overall.

The missile is unique owing to its unmatched speed & range, unsurpassed precision, and complete invulnerability while breaching anti-missile defense systems, according to Russian state media.

SARMAT-MISSILE
File Image: Sarmat Missile

Moscow has previously released animated footage of the Sarmat missile. In the video, an intercontinental ballistic missile could be seen launching out of a silo, followed by an illustration of it rocketing into space.

The ICBM then spreads its nosecone to reveal five nuclear warheads as it crosses a fictitious Earth in a high arc.

Sarmat can simultaneously transport 15 light nuclear warheads. One rocket may hit numerous targets at once due to how these warheads are organized as Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs).

It has advanced guidance technologies and perhaps decoys to trick anti-missile defense systems.

The new missile system’s power-to-weight ratio makes the trajectory changeable, allowing missiles to be fired at various trajectories, according to Russian Strategic Missile Forces Commander Sergei Karakaev, who spoke to the Zvezda TV channel in a previous interaction.

In addition, alternative trajectories are also a possibility, such as the capability of sending the missile into outer space.

An image from Russian military video footage shows the Avangard hypersonic missile system preparing for launch. (Russian Defence Ministry photo)

In fact, in April this year, a few days after the first test launch of the RS-28 Sarmat missile, Karakaev stated that the Russian Sarmat ICBM might be used with several Avangard hypersonic glide vehicles.

“Concerning Sarmat, it is another missile system. It is based on a launcher, and it is much more powerful than Avangard’s launcher. It has also been designed for Avangard, taking into account that the number [of Avangards] on this system [Sarmat] could be more,” Karakaev told Russian broadcaster Rossiya 1.

As previously noted by the EurAsian Times, the Strategic Missile Forces of Russia presently operate at least four missile systems with Avangard capabilities. The killer combination of a hypersonic missile that has a reported speed between Mach 10 & 20 and a formidable ICBM that can carry nuclear warheads is sure to rattle the West.

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