{"id":550586,"date":"2025-11-05T11:41:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T11:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/550586\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T11:41:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T11:41:11","slug":"nothing-revolutionary-about-russias-nuclear-powered-missile-experts-russia-ukraine-war-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/550586\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Nothing revolutionary\u2019 about Russia\u2019s nuclear-powered missile: Experts | Russia-Ukraine war News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kyiv, Ukraine \u2013<\/strong> The collective West is scared of Moscow\u2019s new, nuclear-powered cruise missile because it can reach anywhere on Earth, bypassing the most sophisticated air and missile defence systems, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has claimed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re afraid of what we\u2019ll show to them next,\u201d Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told the RIA Novosti news agency on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

Days earlier, she said Moscow was \u201cforced\u201d to develop and test the cruise missile, which is named the Burevestnik, meaning storm petrel \u2013 a type of seabird, in response to NATO\u2019s hostility towards Russia.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe development can be characterised as forced and takes place to maintain strategic balance,\u201d she was quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency as saying. Russia<\/a> \u201chas to respond to NATO\u2019s increasingly destabilising actions in the field of missile defence\u201d.<\/p>\n

With much pomp, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday handed state awards to Burevestnik\u2019s developers.<\/p>\n

Also awarded were the designers of Poseidon, an underwater nuclear-powered torpedo which Putin has also claimed has been successfully tested.<\/p>\n

Russia says Poseidon can carry nuclear weapons that cause radioactive tsunamis, wiping out huge coastal areas. The \u201csuper torpedo\u201d can move at the speed of 200km\/h (120mph) and zigzag its way to avoid interception, it says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn terms of flight range, the Burevestnik \u2026 has surpassed all known missile systems in the world,\u201d Putin said in his speech at the Kremlin. \u201cSame as any other nuclear power, Russia is developing its nuclear potential, its strategic potential \u2026 What we are talking about now is the work announced a long time ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

But military and nuclear experts are sceptical about the efficiency and lethality of the new weapons.<\/p>\n

It is not unusual for Russia to flaunt its arsenal as its onslaught in Ukraine continues. Analysts say rather than scaring its critics, Moscow\u2019s announcements are merely a scare tactic to dissuade Western powers from supporting Kyiv.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nothing revolutionary about,\u201d the Burevestnik, said Pavel Podvig, director of the Russian Nuclear Forces Project at the the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt can fly long and far, and there\u2019s some novelty about it, but there\u2019s nothing to back [Putin\u2019s claim] that it can absolutely change everything,\u201d Podvig told Al Jazeera. \u201cOne can\u2019t say that it is invincible and can triumph over everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Burevestnik\u2019s test is part of Moscow\u2019s media stratagem of intimidating the West when the real situation on the front lines in Ukraine<\/a> is desperate, according to a former Russian diplomat.<\/p>\n

The missile is \u201cnot a technical breakthrough but a product of propaganda and desperation\u201d, Boris Bondarev, who quit his Russian Foreign Ministry job to protest against the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, wrote in an opinion piece published by the Moscow Times.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt symbolises not strength but weakness \u2013 the Kremlin\u2019s lack of any tools of political influence other than threats.\u201d<\/p>\n

Few details about \u2018unique\u2019 missile<\/p>\n

The problem is that officials have so far unveiled very little about the Burevestnik, which NATO has dubbed the SSC-X-9 Skyfall \u2013 a missile that has a nuclear reactor allegedly capable of keeping it in the air indefinitely.<\/p>\n

On October 26, when fatigues-clad Putin announced Burevestnik\u2019s successful test, he was accompanied by his top general Valery Gerasimov.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a unique item; no one else in the world has it,\u201d said Putin, in televised remarks.<\/p>\n

Gerasimov said the Burevestnik had flown 14,000km (8,700 miles) in 15 hours during a recent test. It can manoeuvre and loiter midair, and unleash its nuclear load with \u201cguaranteed precision\u201d and at \u201cany distance\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of work ahead\u201d before the missile is mass-produced, Putin concluded, adding the test\u2019s \u201ckey objectives have been achieved\u201d.<\/p>\n

A Ukrainian military expert ridiculed the Kremlin\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n

\u201cMuch of the news report is fake, the (Burevestnik) missile is subsonic, it can be detected and destroyed by missile defence systems,\u201d Lieutenant General Ihor Romanenko, former deputy head of Ukraine\u2019s general staff of armed forces who specialised in air and missile defence, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

As for the Poseidon nuclear drone, it is too destructive \u2013 and can be used only as a second-strike, retaliatory weapon after the start of a nuclear war, experts warned. As with the Burevestnik, the lack of detailed information about Poseidon casts doubt upon the Kremlin\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n

Trump decries \u2018inappropriate\u2019 tests<\/p>\n

The Kremlin\u2019s claims followed Washington\u2019s scrapping<\/a> of United States President Donald Trump\u2019s summit with Putin in Budapest, Hungary.<\/p>\n

Trump has called the Burevestnik\u2019s test \u201cinappropriate\u201d and ordered the Pentagon to resume<\/a> the testing of nuclear weapons and missiles.<\/p>\n

But ahead of next year\u2019s midterm elections, he may seek to show how he forced the Kremlin to stop hostilities in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump will have to play with pressure on Russia,\u201d Romanenko said. \u201cHopefully, the circumstances will force Trump to act.\u201d<\/p>\n

What Putin has not mentioned is that only two of the Burevestnik\u2019s dozen tests, starting in 2019, have been successful.<\/p>\n

Its 2019 launch near the White Sea in northwestern Russia killed at least five nuclear experts after a radioactive explosion, Western experts said at the time. Russia\u2019s state nuclear agency acknowledged the deaths, but officials and media reports do not provide video footage, detailed photos or other specifics of the Burevestnik and its testing route \u2013 making Putin\u2019s latest claims hard to corroborate or disprove.<\/p>\n

Western experts were able to identify the Burevestnik\u2019s probable deployment site in September. Known as Vologda-20 or Chebsara, it is believed to be 475km (295 miles) north of Moscow and has nine launch pads under construction, the Reuters news agency reported last year.<\/p>\n

The missile\u2019s capabilities have divided military analysts.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn operation, the Burevestnik would carry a nuclear warhead (or warheads), circle the globe at low altitude, avoid missile defences, and dodge terrain; and drop the warhead(s) at a difficult-to-predict location (or locations),\u201d the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a US nonprofit security group said in a 2019 report after the missile\u2019s first somewhat successful test.<\/p>\n

A year later, the US Air Force\u2019s National Air and Space Intelligence Center said, if brought into service, Burevestnik would give Moscow a \u201cunique weapon with intercontinental-range capability\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u2018Burevestnik is a mystification\u2019<\/p>\n

Others doubt the missile\u2019s functionality.<\/p>\n

\u201cBurevestnik is a mystification for the whole seven-and-a-half years since it was first announced,\u201d Pavel Luzin, a visiting scholar at Tufts University in Massachusetts, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s impossible to create a reactor that is compact and powerful enough to ensure a cruise missile\u2019s movement,\u201d Luzin said. \u201cThis is a basic physics textbook.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moscow claims that Burevestnik utilises nuclear propulsion instead of turbojet or turbofan engines used in cruise or ballistic missiles.<\/p>\n

But Luzin said the smallest nuclear reactors used to power satellites weighed 1 metric tonne, supplying several kilowatts of energy \u2013 roughly equal to what a regular household consumes \u2013 while emitting some 150kw of thermal energy.<\/p>\n

The experimental nuclear reactors developed in the 1950s and the 60s for aircraft weighed many tonnes and were the size of a railway carriage, he said.<\/p>\n

An average engine for a cruise missile weighs up to 80kg, generates 4kw for onboard electric and electronic devices, and about 1 megawatt of energy for propelling the missile, he said.<\/p>\n

Other analysts think that Burevestnik\u2019s nuclear engine can function, but do not consider the weapon groundbreaking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kyiv, Ukraine \u2013 The collective West is scared of Moscow\u2019s new, nuclear-powered cruise missile because it can reach…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[299,12,332,7661,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-550586","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-europe","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-russia","11":"tag-russia-ukraine-war","12":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115496909916092718","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}