Two US researchers say they have identified the likely launch site in Russia for Burevestnik, a new nuclear-powered cruise missile that President Vladimir Putin has called “invincible.”
Putin has said the weapon – dubbed SSC-X-9 Skyfall by NATO – has a nearly unlimited range and can evade US missile defenses. But some Western experts dispute his claims and the strategic value of the Burevestnik, warning of the risk of a radiation 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 deployment site for the new missile. The facility is 475 kilometers (290 miles) north of Moscow.
Reuters is the first to report this development.
Decker Eveleth, an analyst with CNA, a research and analysis organization, found the satellite images and identified what he assessed as nine horizontal launch pads under construction. They are located in three clusters within high berms to protect them from attack or to prevent an accidental explosion at one from detonating missiles at the others, he said.
The verges are connected by roads to what Eveleth concluded were likely buildings where the missiles and their components would be repaired, and to the existing complex of five nuclear warhead storage bunkers.
The site is “for a large fixed missile system and the only large fixed missile system they (Russia) are currently developing is Skyfall,” Eveleth said.
The Russian Defense Ministry and the Washington embassy did not respond to a request for comment on their assessment, the strategic value of the Burevestnik, its testing history and the risks it poses.
A Kremlin spokesman said these were questions for the Defense Ministry and declined to comment further.
The US State Department, the CIA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the US Air Force’s National Air and Space Intelligence Center declined to comment.
The identification of the missile’s likely launch site suggests Russia is moving forward with its deployment after a series of tests in recent years that have been 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” related to Burevestnik. But he added that he could not make a definitive assessment because Moscow typically does not place missile launchers near nuclear warhead storage.
Eveleth, Lewis, Kristensen and three other experts said Moscow’s normal practice has been to store nuclear payloads for land-based missiles far from launch sites — except for those in its deployed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) force.
But deploying the Burevestnik in Vologda would allow the Russian military to stockpile the nuclear-armed missiles in its bunkers, making them available for rapid launch, Lewis and Eveleth said.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Russia will make changes to its guidelines on the use of nuclear weapons in response to what it sees as Western escalation in the war in Ukraine, Russian state news agency TASS reported on Sunday.
Bad test log
A 2020 report from the US Air Force’s National Air and Space Intelligence Center said that if Russia successfully put the Burevestnik into service, it would give Moscow a “unique weapon with intercontinental range capability “.
But the weapon’s troubled past and design limitations raised questions among eight experts interviewed by Reuters about whether its deployment would shift the nuclear stakes for the West and other Russian foes.
The Burevestnik has a poor test 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 nuclear, biological and emerging technology risks.
The setbacks include a 2019 explosion during the botched recovery of an unprotected nuclear reactor that was left to “smolder” on the bottom of the White Sea for a year after a prototype accident, according to State Department reports.
Russia’s state nuclear agency Rosatom said five employees died during a rocket test on August 8. Putin presented widows with the top state awards, saying the weapon they were developing was unmatched in the world, without naming Burevestnik.
Pavel Podvig, a Geneva-based expert on Russia’s nuclear forces, Lewis, Eveleth and other experts said it would not add capabilities that Moscow’s nuclear forces do not already have, including the ability to defeat U.S. missile defenses.
Furthermore, its nuclear-powered engine threatens to release radiation throughout its flight path and its deployment is at risk of an accident that could contaminate the surrounding region, said Cheryl Rofer, a former U.S. nuclear weapons scientist, and other experts.
“Skyfall is an exceptionally stupid weapons system, a flying Chernobyl that poses more of a threat to Russia than to other countries,” agreed Thomas Countryman, a former senior State Department official with the Arms Control Association, referring to the 1986 nuclear plant disaster.
NATO did not respond to questions about how the alliance would respond to the deployment of the weapon.
Little is publicly known about the technical details of the Burevestnik.
Experts estimate it would be launched by a small solid-fuel rocket to propel air into an engine containing a miniature nuclear reactor. Superheated and possibly radioactive air would be expelled, providing forward thrust.
Putin unveiled it in March 2018, saying the missile would be “low-flying,” with nearly unlimited range, an unpredictable flight path and “invincible” to current and future defenses.
Many experts are skeptical about Putin’s claims.
The Burevestnik, they say, could have a range of around 23,000km – compared with more than 17,700km for the Sarmat, Russia’s newest intercontinental ballistic missile – 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 motive here,” he added.
The deployment of the Burevestnik is not prohibited by New START, the latest U.S.-Russia agreement limiting deployments of strategic nuclear weapons, which expires in February 2026.
A provision allows Washington to request negotiations with Moscow to bring Burevestnik under the caps, but a State Department spokesman said no such talks have been sought.
Citing the war in Ukraine, Russia has rejected U.S. calls for unconditional negotiations to replace New START, fueling fears of an all-out nuclear arms race when the deal expires.
Podvig said Moscow could use the missile as a bargaining chip if negotiations resume.
He called Burevestnik a “political weapon” that Putin has used to bolster his strongman image ahead of his 2018 re-election and to telegraph to Washington that it cannot ignore its concerns about U.S. missile defenses and other issues.
This content was originally published in New Russian nuclear missile: US researchers identify likely launch site on CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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