Moscow, May 12 (IANS) Russia has successfully tested the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile, according to Russia’s Commander of the Strategic Missile Forces, local media reported.​

Sergey Karakayev, Commander of the Strategic Missile Forces, stated in a report to Russian President Vladimir Putin that the results of the tests of the Sarmat missile system confirmed the specified characteristics and the correctness of the decisions incorporated into it.​

The missile “will significantly increase the combat capabilities of the ground-based strategic nuclear forces to guarantee the destruction of targets and solve strategic deterrence problems”, Karakayev stated in the report to the President, Russia’s state-owned TASS news agency noted.​

Putin congratulated the Russian military on the successful test of the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile.​

Putin emphasised that this is “the most powerful package system in the world, equal in power to the Soviet-era Voevoda missile system in our arsenal”.​

“The total yield of the delivered warhead is more than four times greater than any existing, most powerful Western equivalent,” Putin stated.​

Putin highlighted that “the missile can travel not only along a ballistic but also a suborbital trajectory, which allows for a range of over 35,000 km while simultaneously doubling its accuracy and the ability to penetrate all existing and future anti-missile defence systems”.​

Karakayev stated that the test confirmed the missile system's flight range, throw weight, launch readiness, and the countermeasures employed.​

The first successful launch of this system was carried out on April 20, 2022, from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in the Arkhangelsk Region.​

Putin also confirmed that the Sarmat system will be deployed at the end of the year.​

The RS-28 Sarmat, an advanced ground-based silo-based missile system capable of carrying nuclear warheads and a heavy liquid-propellant orbital intercontinental ballistic missile, has been under development since the 2000s, the report noted.​

Putin stated that Moscow was forced to “consider ensuring its strategic security in the context of the new reality and the need to maintain a strategic balance of power and parity” in 2002 after Washington withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.​

--IANS

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