Russia Ready To Deploy 'Satan II' Ballistic Missiles Mass Produced For Combat Tasks

ICBM RS-28 Sarmat Rusia. (Tube screenshot/Enjamul Hoque)

JAKARTA - The mass-produced intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) Sarmat for the first time, is ready to be deployed for combat duty in the near future, the Russian Ministry of Defense said on Saturday.

"Currently, the company is building its first mass-produced missile, which will be deployed for combat duty in the near future," the ministry said, launching TASS Oct. 7.

Meanwhile, Director-General of Krasmash Alexander Gavrilov reported expanding the company's production capacity, equipping it with modern technology equipment and immediately inaugurating a new production building for mechanical processing with an area of 18,000 square meters for 300 workplaces, equipped with the most modern standards, the Ministry said.

On October 5, President Vladimir Putin said Sarmat's ICBM would soon enter mass production before entering combat assignments.

"We actually finished working on Sarmat, a super heavy missile. The question is, we just need to complete some administrative and bureaucratic procedures, continue mass production, put them in combat duty. We will do this in the near future," said President Putin.

He added that Russia had also completed and successfully tested a new modern nuclear-powered strategic weapon.

"The last successful test against Burevestnik, a nuclear-powered cruise missile with a global range, has been carried out," Putin said.

Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on February 23, Sarmat's ICBM system would enter service in Russia this year.

RS-28 Sarmat is Russia's advanced silo-based missile system, armed with a liquid propellant-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

The missile was developed at the Makeyev State Rocket Center to replace the R-36M2 Voyevoda ICBM operating in Russia's Strategic Missile Forces since 1988.

Based on expert estimates, the missile, which has the unofficial nickname Satan II, is capable of delivering the MIRVed warhead weighing 10 tons to any location around the world, both in the North Pole and South Pole.

A strategic competition expert with Russia and China at the Atlantic Council as well as professor of political science attenuation University Dr. Matthew Kroenig said Sarmat was the culmination of Russia's modernization efforts, while US efforts to modernize had just begun. He noted that Uncle Sam's country still relies on its last Minuteman missile to be upgraded in the 1970s. In contrast to Russia's claim that Sarmat can carry 10 nuclear warheads, he added, Minuteman can 'only' carry three nuclear warheads.