Moscow Confirms Successful Test of Reactor-Driven Burevestnik Missile
The nation has evaluated the reactor-driven Burevestnik cruise missile, according to the country's top military official.
"We have executed a extended flight of a atomic-propelled weapon and it covered a 8,700-mile distance, which is not the maximum," Top Army Official Valery Gerasimov told the Russian leader in a broadcast conference.
The low-altitude prototype missile, originally disclosed in recent years, has been portrayed as having a theoretically endless flight path and the capacity to evade missile defences.
Foreign specialists have in the past questioned over the projectile's tactical importance and the nation's statements of having successfully tested it.
The head of state said that a "last accomplished trial" of the weapon had been carried out in last year, but the statement could not be independently verified. Of over a dozen recorded evaluations, merely a pair had limited accomplishment since several years ago, based on an non-proliferation organization.
The military leader reported the projectile was in the sky for a significant duration during the evaluation on October 21.
He explained the weapon's altitude and course adjustments were tested and were determined to be meeting requirements, according to a local reporting service.
"Consequently, it displayed high capabilities to circumvent defensive networks," the news agency reported the general as saying.
The missile's utility has been the focus of intense debate in military and defence circles since it was originally disclosed in the past decade.
A 2021 report by a US Air Force intelligence center stated: "An atomic-propelled strategic weapon would provide the nation a distinctive armament with global strike capacity."
Yet, as an international strategic institute observed the same year, Russia confronts major obstacles in developing a functional system.
"Its entry into the nation's stockpile likely depends not only on surmounting the considerable technical challenge of guaranteeing the consistent operation of the nuclear-propulsion unit," specialists stated.
"There were numerous flight-test failures, and a mishap leading to a number of casualties."
A armed forces periodical referenced in the study asserts the weapon has a flight distance of between 6,200 and 12,400 miles, enabling "the projectile to be stationed anywhere in Russia and still be capable to target goals in the American territory."
The same journal also explains the weapon can operate as close to the ground as a very low elevation above ground, rendering it challenging for air defences to engage.
The missile, designated a specific moniker by an international defence pact, is believed to be powered by a reactor system, which is designed to activate after solid fuel rocket boosters have propelled it into the sky.
An investigation by a media outlet recently identified a facility 475km north of Moscow as the possible firing point of the weapon.
Employing orbital photographs from the recent past, an expert reported to the agency he had detected several deployment sites being built at the facility.
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