Russia's message to Biden: New ballistic missile can breach defenses

Moscow is also working on other new weapons, such as an unmanned water vehicle called Poseidon.

By SETH J. FRANTZMAN
Trilateral naval exercise with Iran, Russia and China in Gulf of Oman and Indian Ocean, Dec. 2019 (photo credit: HOSSEIN ZOHREVAND/TASNIM NEWS AGENCY)
Trilateral naval exercise with Iran, Russia and China in Gulf of Oman and Indian Ocean, Dec. 2019
(photo credit: HOSSEIN ZOHREVAND/TASNIM NEWS AGENCY)
Russia’s work on its Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile is nearing completion, and President Vladimir Putin is paying close attention to the progress, Russian state media has reported.
This matters because the Sarmat is expected to build on the experience of the massive 1970s-era R-36M2 Voyevoda ICBM.
“The RS-28 Sarmat is an advanced silo-based system with a heavy liquid-propellant intercontinental ballistic missile,” TASS Russian News Agency reported. “It has been in development since the 2000s to replace the R-36M2 Voyevoda ICBM. It weighs about 200 tons and can carry a maximum payload of around 10 tons. The Sarmat is capable of breaching any existing and future missile defenses.”
Clearly, the Sarmat is a message to the US and Europe, as well as to other countries, about Moscow’s current capabilities. The massive missile has no real application except as a strategic nuclear weapon.
Russia is also working on other new weapons, including an unmanned water vehicle called Poseidon, an air-launched ballistic missile called Kinzhal and a secret laser weapon called Peresvet. Moscow says these are in service, but it is unclear how operational they are.
Russia’s messaging on the Sarmat is designed to coincide with a new US administration coming to power in Washington. It wants to present the US with its new technology, which it has been deploying and developing while US President Donald Trump was in office, as a kind of fait accompli.
Russia said Sarmat trials will begin soon, and it hopes to deploy it by 2022. It is part of a plethora of weapons that Russia is talking up, including drones, warplanes, air-defense systems and “hypersonic” ones.