After the Kinjal, the Sarmat. The Russian army announced on Wednesday April 20 the first successful test firing of its Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile. According to Russian President Vladimir Putin, this weapon “will keep Russia safe from external threats and make those who try to threaten [le] country”.
In a video, the spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry claimed that the firing took place from the launch pad in Plesetsk, in the Arkhangelsk region in northwestern Russia, and that the missile had reached the Kura military zone in Kamchatka, 5,000 km away. Here is what we know about shooting and this new generation weapon with very long range.
A fifth-generation intercontinental ballistic missile
Nicknamed “Satan 2” by analysts, the missile has the official name RS-28 Sarmat. A surname he borrows from the Sarmatians, a nomadic people who lived during Antiquity around the Black Sea, between present-day Russia and Ukraine.
The Sarmat, whose weight exceeds 200 tons, is supposed to be more efficient than its predecessor, the Voevoda, whose range reaches 11,000 km. Once launched, the missile rises in the sky, until it leaves the atmosphere, at an altitude of more than 100 km. It describes a bell-shaped trajectory, before falling back on its target.
A single Sarmat missile can carry ten nuclear warheads. “A single head can cause damage equivalent to 500 kilotons of TNT”, underlines Héloïse Fayet, researcher at the Center for Security Studies at the French Institute for International Relations (Ifri), interviewed by franceinfo. For comparison, the “Little Boy” nuclear bomb dropped by the United States on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945 had an estimated yield of 12 kilotons.
The Sarmat is part of a series of fifth-generation missiles, presented as “invincible” by Vladimir Putin in 2018. A year later, the master of the Kremlin claimed that the Sarmat had no “virtually no range limits” and that he was able to “aim at targets crossing the North Pole like the South Pole”. According to the Russian leader, the missile is also capable of “outwit all modern anti-aircraft systems”.
“All the technical characteristics of this missile are not yet known because it is a program in development”.
Héloïse Fayet, researcher at Ifriat franceinfo
A missile reserved for nuclear deterrence
“Intercontinental ballistic missiles have no vocation to be used on the battlefield. Their only utility is nuclear deterrence”, insists Héloïse Fayet. This strategy consists in preventing an adversary from doing something that we don’t want him to do, by convincing him that he will suffer the same amount – or even more – of damage that he will inflict on us. In the opinion of the researcher, Sarmat’s shot is mainly used to send a message to the United States.
“The idea is to say: ‘if you attack me militarily, I have the capacity to retaliate with my missiles’. This type of employment and response is very framed by a public doctrine.”
Héloïse Fayet, researcher at Ifriat franceinfo
The shooting was also planned for a long time by Moscow, and the United States had been warned. Moreover, the Pentagon assured that it was a test that did not constitute “not a threat” for the United States or its allies.
The essay may, however, have special significance in the context of the war in Ukraine. “Russia recalls that it is a nuclear power and shows that it has a destructive missile. It is communication, strategic signaling”, Héloïse Fayet analysis. However, the researcher believes that “even if there was no war in Ukraine, Russia would have carried out this shooting as it is a routine process of checking one’s abilities“.
A shooting framed by international treaties
The use of intercontinental ballistic missiles is regulated by nuclear treaties. In this specific case, it is the New Start Treaty, a strategic nuclear arms reduction agreement signed between Russia and the United States in 2010.
This treaty limits the arsenals of the two nuclear powers to a maximum of 700 intercontinental ballistic missiles each, 1,550 warheads and 800 launchers, says the US State Department website (link in English). It also involves a series of mutual inspections of military sites and a warning in the event of a trial.