Russia test-fired nuclear-powered Burevestnik missile, military says

Russia has test-fired a nuclear-powered Burevestnik cruise missile, Moscow’s top general said.

“We have flown a nuclear-powered missile for several hours and it has covered a distance of 14,000 km (8,700-miles), which is not the limit,” Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov told President Vladimir Putin in a televised meeting.

The low-flying experimental missile, first announced in 2018, has been touted as having potentially unlimited range and the ability to evade missile defenses.

Western experts have previously cast doubt on the missile’s strategic value and Russian claims of a successful test.

Putin said “The Final Successful Test” The weapons were seized in 2023, but the claim could not be independently verified. Of at least 13 known tests since 2016, only two have been partially successful, according to the Arms Control Campaign group.

General Gerasimov said the missile was in the air for 15 hours during the October 21 test.

According to Russia’s Tass news agency, the missile’s vertical and horizontal movements were tested and were within specification.

“Therefore, it demonstrated a high ability to bypass missile and air defense systems,” said TASS General Gerasimov.

The missile’s usefulness has been the subject of intense debate in military and defense circles since it was first announced in 2018.

A 2021 report by the US Air Force’s National Air and Space Intelligence Center concluded: “A nuclear-powered cruise missile would give Russia a unique weapon with intercontinental range capability.”

However, as the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) noted in the same year, Russia faces significant challenges in making the weapon viable.

“Its entry into Russia’s inventory depends not only on overcoming the significant technical challenge of ensuring reliable performance of the nuclear-propulsion unit,” the IISS analysts wrote.

“Many flight-tests have failed and accidents have resulted in many deaths.”

Cited in the Russian military journal IISS Report The missile has a range of between 10,000 and 20,000km, it claims, “allowing the missile to be located anywhere in Russia and still be able to reach a target in the continental US”.

The same journal also said that the missile can fly 50 to 100 meters below the ground, making it difficult to intercept air defenses.

The missile, code-named Skyfall by NATO, is believed to be powered by a nuclear reactor, which will activate after being released into the air by a solid fuel rocket booster.

A News agency Reuters investigated last year A possible launch site for the weapon was identified 475km (295 miles) north of Moscow.

Using satellite imagery from August 2024, analyst Dekker Eveleth told Reuters he had mapped nine horizontal launch pads at the site.