Russia's new warhead ICBM runs into problems, leaving it stuck with older, inferior missiles

• Russia is struggling to get its new intercontinental ballistic missile to work properly.

• Moscow has put a lot of money and propaganda behind the ICBM.

• Failures will leave Russia dependent on older missiles that will not last forever, experts warn.

Russia has the world's largest nuclear arsenal, but is having trouble getting its latest intercontinental ballistic missile to work. The debate leaves it dependent on capable but inferior missiles at a time when other major powers are upgrading their nuclear forces.

Russia's new RS-28 Sarmat ICBM appeared to suffer a catastrophic failure during a test in September, with satellite images showing a large crack around the pad at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome.

That apparent failure followed what missile experts have described as a number of other issues. Ejection tests and their flight test were again delayed, according to to the Royal United Services Institute think tank in London, and at least two flight tests were canceled and at least one other flight test failure.

The Sarmat is expected to replace the Soviet-era R-36, which first entered service in 1988. NATO calls the long-range missile, which has been modified over years, the SS-18 “Satan.” Without the new Sarmat, Russia will have to rely on older missiles, extending their life, but that cannot go on forever.

Captured by inferior missiles

Delaying the Sarmat, or even canceling it, would mean that Russia would have to continue using old systems while countries such as China introduce new DF-41 ICBMs and the US pushes for continued with upgrades for its ICBM force as part of the Sentinel program.

The R-36 is “already really, really beyond its service life,” said Timothy Wright, a missile technology expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, but the Russians continue to expansion.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the turn of the century that they were going to be out of service by 2007, but here they are, still working nearly two decades later.

“There's only so much they can do,” Wright said. msgid “Parts will start to fail at some point.” He said the R-36s “eventually start to fail because their parts just need to be replaced, and they don't make the parts anymore.” ” If Moscow tried to launch 40 R-36s, he said, “you probably won't get all 40 out of the ground, frankly.”

Fabian Hoffmann, a missile expert at the Oslo Nuclear Project, said the R-36 has been “sitting there for a long time.”

Russia has been asked to reduce the size of its missile arsenal under the New START treaty with the US. Hoffman said Russia could use old parts of those missiles to keep the usable ones going. But the supply is not unlimited, he said. “Who knows what these missiles can still take, how many years?”

There is a possibility that Russia would have to “start cannibalizing existing missiles, take them out of service or retire them or remove them as they call it on combat duty alert, and that's where is the missile literally ready to go,” Wright said.

Russia has other ICBMs, but the R-36 has the largest and most important payload. The Sarmat, as it is replaced, will have a large payload.

Large missiles with lots of warheads

The purpose of the Sarmat was to “make up the majority of their warheads in the future,” Wright said. The ICBM is a large, long-range weapon capable of carrying a heavy MIRV payload, which ' means several independent re-entry vehicles.

The Sarmat is estimated to have a maximum range of 18,000 miles. It has a payload of ten tons and can carry 10 large warheads or 16 smaller ones, according to the Missile Threat fact sheet from the Center for Strategic and International Studies. The R-36 it is intended to replace has a shorter range, but the same payload, capable of carrying 10 multiple independent re-entry vehicles.

Other Russian ICBMs are “much smaller,” Wright said. They cannot carry the same heavy MIRV payload. Russia's RS-24 Yars ICBM, for example, can only carry three MIRV warheads.

As of May 2023, Russia had 1,674 warheads in use, with a total stockpile of 4,489, according to the CSIS. Many of these are used on missiles and other elements of Russia's nuclear triad, which will deter it, but Russia wants the big missile with its massive destructive potential.

It was Russia to understand to have 46 R-36s as of April 2016. Wright said “if they take that missile out of service, they have a bit of a gap.”

“And for Russia, it's important to make sure they have parity with the Americans,” he said. “Whatever the numbers are for the Americans, the Russians want it too.”

Russia appears to be keeping its warheads limited in line with the New START treaty. But if that changes, and it can because Russia has been involved in the contract to cancel itRussia may want to deploy more warheads. Without the Sarmat, Russia will have to find other places for its warheads.

The problems of the Sarmat

Hoffman called the latest Sarmat test “disastrous.” He said “it's not even like the missile missed its target and you can say, 'Oh, the guidance system really didn't work.' No, the whole thing blew up.”

That means it was a real accident, or “there is something fundamentally wrong with the propulsion system, which is very catastrophic,” he said. “And so if it was Russia In me, I think at this point I would worry about that.”

Some experts have warning that Russian resistance could make him desperate, making problems more likely.

Wright said he does not see Russia deciding to cancel the Sarmat program. He said that Putin “has injected a lot of propaganda into the system. When he published it in 2018, it was these amazing reasons why it is so good.

Putin bragging in 2018 that “missile defense systems are useless against them, completely pointless” and that “no other country has developed anything like this.”

The Russians have also put a lot of money into this project, causing it to be postponed.

Hoffman agreed, saying that Russia had little choice given the state of the old missiles. He wants Sarmat for propaganda purposes, and “there is only despair in terms of: 'What else would it be?'”

But there is likely to be a long delay in getting Sarmat up and running causing problems for Russia, with nothing replacing the Sarmat.

“Sarmat is designed to serve a specific purpose, which is basically to have a lot of warheads on top of it,” Wright said, and has no direct role in Russia's arsenal or in the works.

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