Key Points – Russia’s Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV), unveiled by President Putin in 2018 as a nuclear-capable weapon designed to penetrate missile defenses at speeds up to Mach 27, has been further illuminated by a massive late May 2025 leak of classified Russian Strategic Rocket Forces documents.
-This leak, reported by Der Spiegel and Danwatch, provided unprecedented insight, including detailed blueprints of Avangard basing locations near Yasny (Orenburg region) and revealed extensive modernization of Russia’s nuclear infrastructure over the past decade.
-These revelations are described by analysts as a “wake-up call” regarding the scope of Russia’s ongoing nuclear force enhancements.
Russia’s Avangard Hypersonic Glide Vehicle in 2 Words: Mach 27
Russian President Vladimir Putin first announced the successful development of the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle in 2018 during one of his famous annual March State of the Nation addresses.
As usual, Putin portrayed the development of the weapon as a necessary step that Russia was “forced” to take in response to “dangerous escalations” in the arms race committed by the US.
Specifically, he said the Avangard was a response to Washington’s development of a new generation of weapons, plus the latest US missile defense system, requiring that Russia design a weapon that could penetrate it.
He also declared that the Avangard is impossible to intercept and will ensure Russia’s security for decades to come.
At the time of the address he made to the Federal Assembly, a joint session of both chambers of the Russian parliament, the screen on the stage behind the former KGB Lt. Col. projected a CGI-generated simulation of the Avangard in flight and returning to Earth through the atmosphere.
The video displayed the glide vehicle carrying nuclear-tipped warheads while in terminal phase descent and headed for a ground zero detonation in the State of Florida.
But during this video playback, the former KGB Lt. Col. neither explained nor specified why Florida (the home state and the location of President Donald Trump’s primary residence) might be a target of Russian aggression.
Successful Hypersonic First Test
Nine months later, in December, Putin oversaw an actual test of the glide vehicle. Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces (SRF) loaded an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that was equipped with the nuclear-capable Avangard into a launch silo in southern Russia, according to the Russian Defense Ministry (MoD) Zvezda TV channel that later broadcast the event.
While viewing a live video feed of the launch of the Avangard vehicle from the Russian Defense Ministry’s control room, Putin spoke to his top military leadership about the launch.
At the time, he called the successful test of the Avangard a “great success” and an “excellent New Year’s gift to the nation.”
“The Avangard is invulnerable to intercept by any existing and prospective missile defense means of the potential adversary,” Putin also said after the test, echoing his earlier claims as to the invulnerability of the system.
As both the CGI simulation and actual video of the live 2018 test show, the Avangard glide vehicle detaches from the ICBM it is launched on as it approaches its target. It is then able to maneuver sharply outside the normal trajectory of the missile while at hypersonic speeds, which can be up to 27 times the speed of sound. This can be up to 21,000 miles per hour.
During the segment of the Zvezda TV channel broadcast that focused on the pre-launch preparation of the Avangard test launch, a ballistic missile was shown being transported to a launch silo, then slowly being raised into a vertical position, after which it was lowered into a shaft in the Orenburg region near Kazakhstan.
The Secret Files: Avangard’s Basing Location and Russia’s Nuclear Forces
Russia’s SRF ended up basing its first Avangard-equipped missile in 2019 at the same Orenburg facility that was profiled in the Zvezda broadcast. Little more was known about the status of the Avangard program and where these glide vehicles would likely be launched until a massive data leak in late May 2025.
The leak involved over two million documents that had been in the files of the SRF and were highly classified. The details of the files, as well as various drawings and other planning materials, were reported on by investigative journalists working for the publication Der Spiegel.
The documents obtained from the Orenburg site include detailed blueprints of the SRF bases near the regional town of Yasny. Both the two bases in this area are now equipped with the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle. Overall, Der Spiegel’s publishing of these materials has been an eye-opening revelation of the inside of Russia’s nuclear weapons community and the extraordinary resources it has expended updating its facilities.
“Until now, we have only been able to monitor these bases from above using satellite imagery,” Hans M. Kristensen, the director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, said to both the investigative journalism site Danwatch and Der Spiegel. “Now, with the help of these unique drawings, we can for the first time get inside the buildings and all the way underground. It’s completely unprecedented.”
According to both organizations, the documents show how many Russian nuclear facilities have been demolished and then rebuilt with upgraded infrastructure over the past decade. The improvements to the nuclear forces include hundreds of new barracks, control centers, watchtowers, and underground tunnels that connect buildings inside of these bases.
Military analysts have described the information in these documents as a wake-up call. During the recent Shangri-la Dialogue security conference in Singapore, European leaders speaking about the threat from Russia stated, “We [in Europe] have been hitting the ‘snooze button’ too many times in the past decade or more when it comes to the threat from Russia. It is time to get up and do something about it.”
About the Author:
Reuben F. Johnson is a survivor of the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and is an Expert on Foreign Military Affairs with the Fundacja im. Kazimierza Pułaskiego in Warsaw. He has been a consultant to the Pentagon, several NATO governments, and the Australian government in the fields of defense technology and weapon systems design. Over the past 30 years he has resided in and reported from Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Brazil, the People’s Republic of China and Australia.
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