Russia Announces Successful Trial of Atomic-Propelled Burevestnik Weapon
The nation has evaluated the reactor-driven Burevestnik long-range missile, according to the state's top military official.
"We have executed a multi-hour flight of a nuclear-powered missile and it covered a vast distance, which is not the limit," Senior Military Leader Valery Gerasimov informed the head of state in a broadcast conference.
The low-flying experimental weapon, first announced in recent years, has been described as having a theoretically endless flight path and the capacity to avoid anti-missile technology.
Western experts have earlier expressed skepticism over the missile's strategic value and Moscow's assertions of having accomplished its evaluation.
The president stated that a "concluding effective evaluation" of the armament had been carried out in the previous year, but the statement was not externally confirmed. Of at least 13 known tests, merely a pair had limited accomplishment since several years ago, based on an arms control campaign group.
Gen Gerasimov said the projectile was in the sky for fifteen hours during the evaluation on the specified date.
He said the projectile's ascent and directional control were assessed and were confirmed as meeting requirements, based on a national news agency.
"As a result, it displayed advanced abilities to bypass anti-missile and aerial protection," the news agency reported the commander as saying.
The projectile's application has been the subject of intense debate in armed forces and security communities since it was originally disclosed in 2018.
A recent analysis by a foreign defence research body stated: "A nuclear-powered cruise missile would provide the nation a unique weapon with global strike capacity."
Nonetheless, as a foreign policy research organization noted the same year, Moscow encounters major obstacles in developing a functional system.
"Its entry into the nation's inventory arguably hinges not only on resolving the considerable technical challenge of guaranteeing the dependable functioning of the atomic power system," experts wrote.
"There were several flawed evaluations, and a mishap resulting in multiple fatalities."
A military journal quoted in the analysis asserts the weapon has a operational radius of between a substantial span, enabling "the projectile to be stationed throughout the nation and still be able to strike objectives in the United States mainland."
The corresponding source also explains the projectile can travel as at minimal altitude as 50 to 100 metres above ground, causing complexity for aerial protection systems to engage.
The missile, code-named a specific moniker by an international defence pact, is considered driven by a nuclear reactor, which is intended to engage after initial propulsion units have propelled it into the sky.
An examination by a reporting service the previous year identified a facility 475km from the city as the probable deployment area of the missile.
Employing satellite imagery from the recent past, an expert informed the agency he had detected nine horizontal launch pads in development at the facility.
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