The Russian military’s testing of the ‘Satan II’ missile has been . . . bedeviled by constant, hellacious setbacks and problems.
At the beginning of the Russian war in Ukraine, it was fair to wonder if Vladimir Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling was merely a bluff or a terrifying sign that the world was inching towards the first use of an atomic or nuclear weapon since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Putin has made threatening comments intermittently throughout the course of the war. (For background on Russian military doctrine involving tactical nuclear weapons, read here.)
No less a figure than Joe Biden publicly speculated in October 2022 at a Democratic Party fundraiser at the home of the Murdochs, out of the blue, that the world “faced the prospect of Armageddon,” because of the potential Russian use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Even China’s Xi Jinping said that he opposes the use of nuclear weapons by Russia in its war against Ukraine, and reportedly communicated his views directly to Putin.
Back in April, House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Michael McCaul said of national-security adviser Jake Sullivan, “He’s overly cautious. He’s very timid. And he’s bought into this notion that, well, if we give them too much, then Russia’s going to use a tactical nuke on us. Well, most intelligence I’ve seen is they’re not going to do that. Because that would be a game-changer for everybody.”
But with each passing month, and each new move by the Ukrainians — drone attacks deep into Russian territory, attacks on Russian oil refineries, etc. — it becomes less and less likely that Putin will ever go nuclear, at least over the war in Ukraine. Unless Putin has lost his marbles, the likely blowback and consequences are proving too dire, and the benefit appears too small to justify the move.
This morning, not only do the leaders of the West have reason to doubt that Russia will follow through on any nuclear saber-rattling, but it’s not clear how well the Russian nuclear arsenal would work if Putin gave the order.
Russia appears to have suffered a “catastrophic failure” in a test of its Sarmat missile, a key weapon in the modernisation of its nuclear arsenal, according to arms experts who have analysed satellite images of the launch site.
The images captured by Maxar on Sept. 21 show a crater about 60 metres (200 feet) wide at the launch silo at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia. They reveal extensive damage that was not visible in pictures taken earlier in the month.
“By all indications, it was a failed test. It’s a big hole in the ground,” said Pavel Podvig, an analyst based in Geneva, who runs the Russian Nuclear Forces project. “There was a serious incident with the missile and the silo.”
The Sarmat missile’s other name is the “Satan II,” use of which will inevitably lead to accusations of demonizing the Russians.
The Russian testing of the Satan II has been . . . bedeviled by constant, hellacious setbacks and problems. Maxim Starchak, an expert in the Russian nuclear program, writing for the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace in October 2023:
The Sarmat’s development was plagued by repeated delays. Initial tests were supposed to have taken place in 2015, but only happened in 2017. The missile was supposed to enter into service in 2018, but that deadline was also repeatedly pushed back. The political pressure for the Sarmat to enter service intensified dramatically in 2021, but that did little to expedite the process.
Russia initially planned three Sarmat test launches in 2021, but that plan was amended down to one—and then delayed until 2022. Test launches finally took place in April 2022, but there have been none since.
Then head of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin promised the Sarmat would be fine-tuned in a second round of flight tests and, following the successful April launches, he announced a minimum of three more tests that year. They never happened. In February 2023, there was likely a Sarmat test launch that ended in failure.
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.
The Russians may get burned by their faith in Satan II.