President Vladimir Putin said Russia has successfully tested the nuclear-powered, nuclear-weapon capable Burevestnik cruise missile and is seeking ways to deploy it at a time when the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine drags on.
The Kremlin published a video on October 26 of a meeting between Putin and Chief of the General Staff, General Valery Gerasimov, which reportedly took place at a command post of the joint group of forces.
Gerasimov said the test occurred five days earlier, when the missile, which Moscow claims cannot be detected by any defense system, traveled 14,000 kilometers (8,700 miles) and was in the air for about 15 hours.
The missile, dubbed Skyfall by NATO, has been under development for more than a decade. It’s one of several new systems Russian designers have focused on as the Kremlin pours money into weapons development as part of a not fully recognized arms race — mainly against the United States.
“The decisive tests are now complete,” Putin said in the video, adding he has ordered the preparation of “infrastructure to put this weapon into service in the Russian armed forces.”
The advancement of the project comes after Putin’s war on Ukraine entered its 45th month with Russian troops grinding out incremental gains.
Kyiv has been pushing the United States and its Western allies to provide longer-range weapons such at Tomahawk missiles to allow Ukraine to strike deeper into Russia as it tries to gain an upper hand in the war and strengthen its position in any peace talks, which currently appear to be stalled.
The Burevestnik is powered essentially by a small nuclear reactor built into the engine, theoretically enabling it to stay aloft for days. The United States researched the possibility of such a weapon in the 1960s, but abandoned it as dangerous and unfeasible.
The missile has drawn particular attention from arms control and intelligence experts, partly because of the technology but also its past failures.
A botched bid to recover a sunken missile — thought to be a Burevestnik — caused a radiation blast in the White Sea in 2019, killing five people, documents, photographs, satellite imagery, and other open-source materials reviewed by RFE/RL showed.
Russia’s state nuclear agency, Rosneft, later said five technicians had been killed in the incident. And US officials confirmed the radiation plume was caused during the recovery of a nuclear-powered missile.
Putin’s announcement comes as the New START treaty, which limits US and Russian nuclear forces to 1,550 strategic warheads and 700 strategic launchers deployed on each side, is set to expire early next year.
The Russian leader recently offered to voluntarily respect the treaty’s limits for one year, a proposal US President Donald Trump said “sounds like a good idea to me.”
