Russia's Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Satan II Called Failed During Initial Test This Month

ICBM RS-28 Sarmat or Satan II belongs to Russia. (Tube screenshot/Enjamul Hoque)

JAKARTA - An expert on armament and satellite imagery from the launch site showed that the Russian RS-28 Sarmat (ICBM) intercontinental ballistic missile or Satan II was likely to fail during this month's test.

Maxar satellite imagery from September 21 shows craters about 60 meters (200 ft) wide in the launch silo of the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia and damage around areas not seen in previous satellite images.

Satellite imagery did not clearly show whether the liquid-fueled Sarmat failed at the launch or an accident during the defueling.

"Based on all the indications, it was a failed trial. It was a big hole on the ground," said Pavel Podvig, an analyst based in Geneva, Switzerland who runs the Russian Nuclear Forces project.

"There have been serious incidents with missiles and silo," he continued.

Meanwhile, Russia's Ministry of Defense did not respond to a request for comment and has yet to make an announcement of Sarmat's planned trials in recent days.

Last week, politician and close ally President Vladimir Putin warned of the capabilities of the Satan II Missile, while commenting on the European Union's move to lift arms use restrictions by Ukraine.

A spokesman for the lower house of parliament who is also a member of the Russian Federation Security Council Vyacheslav Volodin last Thursday warned the Western state that a nuclear war would occur if Ukraine received the green light using long-range weapons to strike deep targets within Russian territory.

The warning was in response to a vote in the European Parliament urging EU countries to grant the approval to Kyiv.

The European Parliament approved a resolution on Ukraine urging European Union (EU) countries to immediately lift all restrictions on the Kyiv attack on Russian territory.

The resolution adopted on Thursday with 425 votes in favor, 131 against, and 63 abstain, states that without lifting current restrictions, Ukraine cannot fully exercise its right to defend itself and remains vulnerable to attacks on its residents and infrastructure.

In a non-binding resolution adopted on Thursday last week, the European Parliament called on EU countries to "immediately lift restrictions on the use of Western weapons systems sent to Ukraine against legitimate military targets in Russian territory."

"If something like this happens, Russia will give a strong response using stronger weapons. No one should have any illusions about this," Volodin wrote.

He said, for Moscow, it appeared that the West had forgotten the great sacrifices made by the Soviet Union in the Second World War.

Europeans must understand the RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile belonging to Russia, known in the West as Satan II, only takes 3 minutes and 20 seconds to attack Strasbourg, where the European Parliament convenes, Volodin said.

The Sarmat RS-28 has a length of 35 meters and a range of up to 18,000 km (11,000 miles). The missile has a launch weight of more than 208 tons and can carry up to 16 nuclear warheads of re-inflow vehicles that can be targeted independently, as well as several Avangard hypersonic glide vehicles, according to Russian media.