Putin claims Burevestnik nuclear-powered missile test

2023-10-06 08:00:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Putin claims Burevestnik nuclear-powered missile test

Illustrative photo

Russia has conducted a "successful final test" of a nuclear-powered cruise missile, Vladimir Putin has claimed.

The president's comments came after his spokesman denied a New York Times report that testing the weapon, known as the Burevestnik, was imminent.

The experimental weapon, first announced in 2018, is estimated to have a potentially unlimited range.

But no details are known as the previous tests have also failed.

Satellite images circulated last month showed that Russia had recently built new facilities at a remote Arctic island location where Soviet nuclear tests had previously been conducted.

The images showed construction work on Novaya Zemlya, an island archipelago in the northern Barents Sea.

"Now we have practically completed work on the modern types of strategic weaponry that I talked about and announced several years ago," Putin said at a meeting in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Thursday, which was broadcast live. on state television.

He added: "A successful final test of the Burevestnik - a nuclear-powered cruise missile with a global range - has been held."

The missile, codenamed Skyfall by NATO, is said to be powered by a nuclear reactor, which is supposed to be activated after solid-fuel rocket boosters launch it into the air. But the New York Times cited a campaign group as saying weapons agency, the Nuclear Threat Initiative, said the 13 previous known tests of the system between 2017 and 2019 were all unsuccessful.

Putin said work was almost complete on an intercontinental ballistic missile, called the Sarmat.

Despite Mr Putin's apparent revelation, he said Russia had no plans to change its nuclear doctrine - the policy that defines the circumstances under which its forces can use nuclear weapons.

He added that the existence of the Russian state was not under threat and "no person in their right mind and clear memory" would think of a nuclear attack against it.

But he indicated that Russia could theoretically withdraw its ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty of 1996. He argued that since the US had signed but never ratified it, it was possible for Russia to do the same.

During the same meeting in Sochi, Putin said the crash of the plane that killed Wagner Group head Yevgeny Prigozhin in August was not caused by "external intervention" such as a missile attack./ CNA