Reuters was the first to report the development.
Washington:
Two American researchers say they have identified the likely deployment site in Russia of the 9M370 Burevestnik, a new nuclear-powered cruise missile touted by President Vladimir Putin as “invincible.”
Putin has said the weapon, dubbed the SSC-X-9 Skyfall by NATO, has a virtually unlimited range and can evade U.S. missile defenses. But some Western experts dispute his claims and the Burevestnik’s strategic value, saying it would not add capabilities Moscow does not already possess and could risk a radioactive accident.
Using images taken on July 26 by Planet Labs, a commercial satellite company, the two researchers identified a construction project adjacent to a nuclear warhead storage facility known by two names — Vologda-20 and Chebsara — as a potential site for deploying the new missile. The facility is 295 miles (475 km) north of Moscow.
Reuters was the first to report the development.
Decker Eveleth, an analyst with the research and analysis organization CNA, found the satellite imagery and identified what he believes are nine horizontal launch pads under construction. They are arranged in three groups inside high berms to protect them from attack or to prevent an accidental explosion in one from setting off missiles in the others, he said.
The berms are connected by roads to what Eveleth concluded were likely buildings where the missiles and their components would be maintained, and to the existing complex of five nuclear warhead storage bunkers.
The site is “intended for a large fixed missile system and the only large fixed missile system they (Russia) are developing right now is the Skyfall,” Eveleth said.
The Russian Defense Ministry and embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment on its assessment, Burevestnik’s strategic value, its testing record and the risks it poses.
A Kremlin spokesman said the questions were addressed to the Defense Ministry and declined to comment further.
The U.S. State Department, the CIA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the U.S. Air Force’s National Air and Space Intelligence Center declined to comment.
The identification of the missile’s likely launch site suggests that Russia is moving forward with its deployment after a series of tests in recent years that were marred by problems, said Eveleth and the second researcher, Jeffery Lewis, of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey.
Lewis agreed with Eveleth’s assessment after reviewing the images at his request. The images “suggest something very unique, very different. And obviously, we know that Russia is developing this nuclear-powered missile,” he said.
Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists, who also studied the Vologda images at Eveleth’s request, said they appeared to show launch pads and other features “possibly” linked to Burevestnik. But he said he could not make a definitive assessment because Moscow does not usually place missile launchers near a nuclear warhead depot.
Eveleth, Lewis, Kristensen and three other experts said Moscow’s normal practice is to store nuclear warheads for land-based missiles far from launch sites – except for those of its deployed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) force.
But deploying the Burevestnik to Vologda would allow the Russian military to store nuclear missiles in its bunkers, making them available for rapid launch, Lewis and Eveleth said.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Russia would change its guidelines on the use of nuclear weapons in response to what it sees as Western escalation in the war in Ukraine, the state-run TASS news agency reported on Sunday.
POOR TEST RESULTS
A 2020 report from the U.S. Air Force’s National Air and Space Intelligence Center said that if Russia were to successfully field the Burevestnik, it would give Moscow a “unique weapon with intercontinental range capability.”
But the weapon’s checkered past and design limitations raised doubts among eight experts interviewed by Reuters about whether its deployment would change the nuclear stakes for the West and Russia’s other foes.
The Burevestnik has a poor record of at least 13 known tests, with only two partial successes, since 2016, according to the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), an advocacy group focused on reducing emerging nuclear, biological and technological risks.
Setbacks include a 2019 explosion during the failed recovery of an unshielded nuclear reactor left to “smolder” at the bottom of the White Sea for a year after a prototype crashed, according to State Department reports.
Russia’s nuclear agency Rosatom announced that five of its staff members died in a rocket test on August 8. Putin presented their widows with the highest state awards, saying the weapon they were developing had no equivalent in the world, without naming the Burevestnik.
Pavel Podvig, a Geneva-based expert on Russian nuclear forces, Lewis, Eveleth and other experts said it would not add any capabilities that Moscow’s nuclear forces do not already possess, including the ability to overwhelm U.S. missile defenses.
Moreover, its nuclear-powered engine threatens to release radiation along its flight path, and its deployment risks causing an accident that could contaminate the surrounding region, said Cheryl Rofer, a former U.S. nuclear weapons scientist, and other experts.
“Skyfall is a particularly stupid weapons system, a flying Chernobyl that poses a greater threat to Russia than to other countries,” acknowledged Thomas Countryman, a former senior State Department official at the Arms Control Association, referring to the 1986 nuclear power plant disaster.
NATO did not respond to questions about how the alliance would respond to the deployment of the weapon.
Little is known about the technical details of the Burevestnik.
Experts believe the ship would be powered by a small solid-fuel rocket that would force air into an engine containing a miniature nuclear reactor. Superheated and potentially radioactive air would be expelled, providing forward thrust.
Putin unveiled it in March 2018, saying the missile would “fly at low altitude,” have a nearly unlimited range, an unpredictable flight path, and be “invincible” to current and future defenses.
Many experts are skeptical of Putin’s claims.
The Burevestnik, they say, could have a range of around 23,000 km (15,000 miles) – compared to more than 17,700 km (11,000 miles) for the Sarmat, Russia’s newest ICBM – while its subsonic speed would make it detectable.
“It will be as vulnerable as any cruise missile,” Kristensen said. “The longer it flies, the more vulnerable it becomes because there is more time to track it. I don’t understand Putin’s motivations here.”
The deployment of the Burevestnik is not prohibited by New START, the last U.S.-Russia agreement limiting deployments of strategic nuclear weapons, which expires in February 2026.
One provision allows Washington to request negotiations with Moscow to bring the Burevestnik under control, but a State Department spokesman said no such negotiations had been considered.
Citing the war in Ukraine, Russia has rebuffed U.S. calls for unconditional negotiations to replace the New START treaty, stoking fears of a full-scale nuclear arms race when it expires.
Podvig said Moscow could use the missile as a bargaining chip if negotiations ever resumed.
He called the Burevestnik a “political weapon” that Putin has used to bolster his strongman image ahead of his 2018 re-election and to send a message to Washington that it cannot ignore its concerns about U.S. missile defense and other issues.
(Except for the headline, this article has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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