Key Points and Summary – Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a successful 15-hour, 14,000-km test of the Burevestnik (NATO: “Skyfall”), a nuclear-powered cruise missile with a theoretical “infinite range.”
-This 2018 “doomsday” weapon has been dubbed the “Flying Chernobyl” by critics, including Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who warn that its onboard nuclear reactor could cause a catastrophic radiological disaster if it crashes.
Image Credit: Creative Commons. Image is of a Russian missile being tested.
-Despite Putin’s claim, the test remains unverified, and the program’s history is plagued by failure, with previous tests lasting mere minutes.
-The U.S. had deployed a WC-135R radiation-sniffing aircraft to the Arctic test site in anticipation of the launch.
Russia Claims a Successful Test of “Flying Chernobyl”
WARSAW, POLAND – Russian President Vladimir Putin announced early on Sunday, 26 October, that Moscow had successfully carried out a test of the 9M730, nicknamed “Burevestnik”, and known by its NATO Codename parlance of SSC-X-9 or “Skyfall.”
The weapon is billed as an intercontinental cruise missile, which is powered by an onboard nuclear engine.
That nuclear-powered on-board motor is what would give the weapon this infinite range. Running off an on-board reactor would remove the limitation that every other missile in the world suffers from: they can only fly as far as the on-board fuel will last.
Russia’s Chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, reportedly told Putin that the missile test took place last Tuesday and that the missile flew 14,000 kilometers (about 8,700 miles) over the course of the test, which lasted about 15 hours.
No confirmation of these numbers has been possible since the flight supposedly took place.
“The technical characteristics of the Burevestnik allow it to be used with guaranteed precision against highly protected sites located at any distance,” said the Russian president and former KGB Lt. Col. “It is truly a unique weapon, one that no other country in the world possesses,” Putin said on the occasion of a visit to one of the command centers of the Russian joint group of forces.
Putin then ordered the preparation of “infrastructure to put this weapon into service in the Russian armed forces.”
Confirmation of the Burevestnik test comes after satellite imagery taken in recent months that showed indications of an upcoming launch, as well as navigation notices that had been issued.
Putin Reveals His Plan For a Flying Chernobyl
Vladimir Putin first revealed the weapon in a State of the Nation speech to the Federal Assembly in March 2018.
Like many of his other addresses to this body, a session of both houses of the Russian parliament, this was another of the Russian president’s infomercials on how he plans to cause the end of the world.
Specifically, he showed CGI-created videos or images of six nuclear-delivery doomsday weapon systems that Russia had in various stages of development at the time.
Besides Burevestnik, other charming Russian inventions were supposedly ready soon.
These included a liquid-fueled ICBM called the Sarmat that was billed as carrying enough warheads to devastate an area the size of France, a hypersonic cruise missile that carries a single two-ton nuclear warhead, an unmanned robot submarine designed to travel for weeks and then surface offshore New York or Los Angeles, or in Baltimore harbor.
It would then rain down enough enhanced radiation warhead weapons on these ports to render them unusable for centuries.
The only weapon he mentioned on this day that has been used by the Russian armed forces to date is the Kinzhal missile, which can be launched from the centerline of a Russian MiG-31 fighter aircraft.
The missile has since been used in the Ukraine theatre, but only with conventional warheads.
The Real Threat
What terrifies many analysts is the possibility that installing a nuclear-powered motor on the Burevestnik could create a real ecological disaster.
This was a fact picked up immediately after the 2018 announcement by the former oligarch and Putin critic-in-exile, Mikhail Khodorkovsky.
In a short video response delivered almost immediately after Putin’s presentation, he singled out the Burevestnik.
He pointed out when Putin was speaking “of tests that have already taken place of a new missile that supposedly has an on-board nuclear engine. And where did these tests take place? Overhead of the territory of Russia,” asked Khodorkovsky.
“And of this missile with an on-board nuclear motor – what is that exactly?”, he continued. “It is a missile that has a five-millimeter internal canister that holds a wildly dangerous radioactive substance and if that missile crashes into some hill—well you can yourselves clearly imagine that this is a territory that will be permanently contaminated.”
“I do not know, but does he [Putin] understand this? And the people [in this audience] who are listening to him—do they understand this? These people who are watching and applauding. You people—do you realize that you are being told that Chernobyl is flying overhead above you?”
Operational Profile
The information released about the Burevestnik states that its mission profile is to remain airborne for days or potentially weeks while searching for vulnerabilities in Western defense systems.
The actual number is not known, but the system is supposed to have already undergone more than a dozen trials.
However, the available evidence suggests that tests have produced no measurable achievements.
Putin said a “final successful test” of the weapon had taken place in 2023, but this claim “could not be independently verified,” according to the BBC.
There have been at least 13 known tests, but only two have had even partial success since 2016, according to an arms control advocacy group.
Equipment movements and other preparations at the Pankovo testing facility on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago in the Arctic telegraphed signs that a test was imminent.
These were discovered by Decker Evelet, a nuclear weapons specialist at the Washington, D.C., area Center for Naval Analyses, a US federally funded research and development center.
According to The Moscow Times, the US Air Force (USAF) deployed a WC-135R radiation-surveillance aircraft to Novaya Zemlya due to signs that a test was likely to occur at any moment.
The Burevestnik’s longest flight to date is thought to have been only 22 miles, lasting around 2 minutes.
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of the Asia Research Centre at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
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