Russia has said that it conducted a long-awaited test of its mysterious Burevestnik (also known to NATO as SSC-X-9 Skyfall) cruise missile last week, claiming that it flew for 8,700 miles. The missile, which is nuclear-powered, is said to have remained in the air for around 15 hours. For the time being, we don’t know if those statements are factually accurate, and details about how the missile actually works remain very scarce. However, the claimed test has led to boasts about the missile’s performance from Russian President Vladimir Putin, while his U.S. counterpart, Donald Trump, called upon Putin to end the war in Ukraine “instead of testing missiles.”
Russia’s Chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, told Putin yesterday that a successful test of the Burevestnik was carried out on October 21. Gerasimov said that the 15-hour flight “is not the [maximum] limit” for the missile. Regardless, if true, this would appear to be the first long-endurance test of the missile.
In response to Gerasimov’s remarks, Putin commented: “I remember vividly when we announced that we were developing such a weapon, even highly qualified specialists told me that, yes, it was a good and worthy goal, but unrealizable in the near future. This was the opinion of specialists, I repeat, highly qualified. And now the decisive tests have been completed.”
The Russian president was referring to the revelation of the Burevestnik’s existence back in 2018. It was one of six ‘super weapons’ that also included hypersonic weapons and a nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed torpedo.
Of all these weapons, the Burevestnik has long been among the most intriguing.
As TWZ described when it was first announced, the basic concept of a nuclear-powered cruise missile is by no means new.
After all, in the 1960s, the U.S. Air Force explored a similar idea with its Supersonic Low Altitude Missile, or SLAM. This weapon employed a nuclear-powered ramjet along with conventional rocket boosters to kickstart the system. Once at the appropriate speed, the engine would blow air over the reactor, which could have enough fuel to operate for weeks or months on end, and then force it out of an exhaust nozzle to produce thrust.
A missile of this kind has extreme endurance, not limited by conventional fuel onboard as all other air-breathing missiles are, can be wildly unpredictable and tough to defend against.
While we don’t know what kind of nuclear propulsion the Burevestnik uses, provided this kind of technology can be made reliable, the implications are significant.
Of the latest test, Gerasimov said: “The technical characteristics of the Burevestnik generally allow it to be used with guaranteed accuracy against highly protected targets at any distance.” He added that: “vertical and horizontal maneuvers were completed,” something that would allow the missile to “bypass anti-missile and air defense systems.”
As we have surmised before, an operational Burevestnik would likely cruise at high subsonic speed on a circuitous route at extremely low altitude, helping it to avoid surface-based early warning systems and missile defense interceptors.
Using a two-way datalink, it should be possible to adapt the Burevestnik’s course in flight to further confuse an opponent or actively counter any attempts to intercept the missile.
The American SLAM concept involved a payload of multiple nuclear warheads that could be dropped on different targets along the way, but again, the warhead of the Russian missile remains mysterious. Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, claimed that the latest test involved a warhead. If true, it would almost certainly involve a mock warhead, without the nuclear material, which would serve to test fuzing and detonation, for example.
Nevertheless, a technically perfected Burevestnik remains a somewhat questionable goal given previous problems with the program. At the same time, there remains the very real issue of safety and environmental hazards. We will dive deeper into both these factors later.
Returning to last week’s test, Gerasimov didn’t say where it took place, but it’s widely assumed to have been in Novaya Zemlya, an archipelago in northern Russia, situated in the Arctic Ocean, and used for many previous weapons tests.
Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) orders issued for October 21 showed a large area around Novaya Zemlya closed off, corresponding to a Russian missile test or live-fire exercise.
Meanwhile, several Russian vessels that are known to be used in missile tests were noted in positions along the coast of the Arctic archipelago, both on the Barents Sea and Kara Sea sides. Probable support aircraft belonging to Rosatom, the Russian state nuclear corporation, and the Russian Aerospace Forces were also seen at Rogachevo airfield on Novaya Zemlya.
There have also been flights by a U.S. Air Force WC-135 Constant Phoenix “nuke sniffer” aircraft in the region, which some observers suggested could have been related to a Burevestnik. After a flight by this aircraft around the Barents Sea on August 5, the Air Force told TWZ that this was “to conduct routine background collection … to ensure signatory nations are adhering to established United Nations treaties.” The Air Force spokesperson added that the deployment of the WC-135 to the United Kingdom was planned and scheduled months in advance.
Background collection is something that could be conducted in anticipation of a Burevestnik test in the future. This data will be used to compare that from a collection mission following a test. At the same time, the wider region hosts other Russian nuclear assets, which would also be of interest for such flights, which are fairly regular in occurrence.
Finally, the test site at Pankovo, north of Rogachevo, on Yuzhny Island in the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, has seen considerable activity starting this summer. Pankovo hosts what is understood to be the main launch site for the Burevestnik, with two rail-type launchers under a retractable covering.
Provided that last week’s test was conducted from Pankovo, making use of the area signaled by the NOTAM, then the missile must have flown in a racetrack or zigzag pattern around the Arctic archipelago. Less likely would be a longer route flown across the north of Russia.
Whatever the case, Norway, the closest NATO country to the test area, said it hadn’t detected any spikes in radiation at any of its monitoring posts.
“We have not measured anything abnormal at our measuring stations in Norway,” a spokesperson for the Norwegian Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (DSA) told the Barents Observer. However, there is still time for such a reading to be made.
“If there has been a radioactive release in connection with Russia’s testing of the cruise missile, it will take a long time to travel to Norway, and it will take time before it can be registered at our measuring stations,” the DSA spokesperson added.
Previous tests of the Burevestnik have not been without incident.
When he announced the missile in 2018, Putin suggested that tests of the propulsion system had occurred the previous year, but there was no indication of whether this had been in flight or on the ground and under what conditions.
Soon after Putin’s 2018 announcement, the Norwegian-based environmental group Bellona suggested that a radiation spike in the Arctic that same winter was caused by the missile’s open-air-cooled reactor core.
Later in 2018, a U.S. intelligence report described the loss at sea of a Russian nuclear-powered missile during a 2017 test. The report added that Russia was expected to embark on a search and recovery mission to try to lift the missile’s wreckage from the seabed.
The Russian Ministry of Defense released the video below in 2018, saying that it showed an earlier Burevestnik test launch, as well as examples of the missiles themselves.
More dramatically, in 2019, an explosion occurred aboard a barge in the White Sea, outside Nenoksa, killing five Rosatom scientists. It also led to a radiation spike in the Russian city of Severodvinsk, as you can read more about here. The explosion has been blamed on a reactor from a Burevestnik recovered from the sea, likely the one that was lost in 2017.
While the details of these accidents remain murky, they point to a significant problem in using nuclear propulsion for a missile or any other vehicle flying in the atmosphere.
It should be recalled that, in the case of SLAM, the nuclear ramjet had no shielding to contain dangerous radiation, a requirement driven by the need for the powerplant to be small enough to fit inside the missile. The SLAM’s exhaust plume also contained unspent fissile material that would have contaminated any area, enemy-controlled or not, that it passed over on its way to the target.
While the Burevestnik has already been likened to a ‘tiny flying Chernobyl’ by some observers, it’s important to remember that we still don’t know how it functions.
Nevertheless, provided it does indeed use nuclear propulsion, as claimed, there exists the risk of accidents.
“The testing [of the Burevestnik] carries a risk of accidents and local radioactive emissions,” Norway’s Intelligence Service (NIS) stated in a threat assessment report published last year.
This is especially the case during an unarmed test, when the missile necessarily has to come down to the surface, impacting either land or water. Here, especially, there remain a lot of questions about how the missile is tested.
It’s possible that the missile came down in waters around Novaya Zemlya, in either the Barents Sea or the Kara Sea. According to the Barents Observer and other sources, there are several ships in this area, on both sides of the Matochkin Strait, which might be involved in a recovery operation.
These ships include Rosatom’s special-purpose vessel Rossita, on the eastern coast of the Kola Peninsula. This vessel was noted making port calls in Novaya Zemlya after previous presumed Burevestnik tests. The Rossita is equipped to transport spent nuclear fuel and other hazardous radioactive material.
Perhaps, if Norway subsequently detects a radioactive spike in this area, we might learn more about where the missile ended its flight.
In the meantime, Putin took the opportunity to push claims about the missile’s game-changing nature.
“We need to determine the possible uses and begin preparing the infrastructure for deploying this weapon in our armed forces,” Putin said yesterday. This is especially relevant considering that the New START treaty with the United States, which puts a limit on strategic nuclear warheads and launchers, expires next year. Gerasimov’s announcement of the long-distance test also came one day before Russia began its annual Grom strategic nuclear maneuvers.
When asked for his reaction to the claims of the Burevestnik test, President Donald Trump stated that the U.S. Navy has a nuclear submarine “right off their shores,” meaning that there is no immediate requirement for a missile with the kind of range that the Russian cruise missile should possess.
At the same time, Trump noted that Russia is “not playing games with us. We’re not playing games with them either.” As for Putin’s comments on the missile test, Trump said: “I don’t think it’s an appropriate thing for Putin to be saying,” reminding the Russian leader that the priority was to bring an end to the war in Ukraine.
Still, the prospect of the Burevestnik entering service is a concerning one for adversaries of Russia. The missile can be launched preemptively and approach its target from any vector long after launch. For example, it could be launched from the Arctic, stay aloft for many hours, and then attack the United States from the south. Once launched, its flight path is entirely unpredictable, and it could exploit holes in defenses and weaker spots in early warning capabilities. It provides another reason why space-based tracking layers, including those that can spot low-flying aircraft, are currently very much on trend.
It is also worth noting that the latest Burevestnik test comes at a time when the U.S. Golden Dome initiative is taking shape, and the Russian missile reinforces the case for such a system. At the same time, it also underlines the reason why Russia wants weapons like this, so that it can better bypass existing strategic air defense systems.
The latest developments leave no doubt that the Burevestnik is a prestige program for Russia, even if many questions still surround it, and the nature of the latest test.
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