On February 20, US President Joe Biden made a surprise visit to Kyiv, where he met with
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The visit, which took place as the Ukraine war approached its first anniversary, was
intended to convey Western solidarity with the Ukrainian cause.
As per reports, while President Joe Biden was in Ukraine, Russia conducted a test of
an intercontinental ballistic missile which seems to have not worked as intended.
It was also reported, Russia notified the United States in advance of the launch through
deconfliction lines.
In this video Defense Updates analyzes how President Putin’s attempt to threaten the
U.S. failed with an unsuccessful SARMAT ICBM test?
Let's get into the details.
Sarmat was introduced during a 2018 Russian state-of-the-nation address as the “next
generation” of weaponry that could breach “any missile defense” system.
Sarmat is a 3-stage missile and uses Liquid Propellant the exact nature of which is classified.
The missile has a speed of over Mach 20.7.
It weighs in at a massive 200 tons, making it the heaviest missile in the world.
To give viewers a perspective, the US land-based strategic missile LGM-30 Minuteman 3, has
a weight of 35 tons approximately.
According to some estimates, the missile's striking range is up to 18,000 kilometers
or 11,185 miles.
It also has a large number of divided parts, from 10 to 15 warheads, each with a capacity
of up to 750 kilotons.
They will fly to their target at hypersonic speeds performing maneuvers so that the existing
American missile defense system would be incapable of intercepting them”.
Little Boy atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima had a yield of 15 kt of TNT.
Samrat’s cumulative explosive power will be 15 warheads multiplied by 750 kt which
is around 11,000 kt of TNT.
It will also be able to accommodate Hypersonic Boost Glide Vehicle as well as decoys.
The Russian news outlet Sputnik reported that a single Sarmat is “capable of wiping out
parts of the Earth the size of France or Texas”.
As per the Russian Ministry of Defense, around 50 Sarmat ICBMs will be produced.
The first contract for the production of the missiles was signed in August 2022.
The missile has been successfully tested before.
On 20 April 2022, according to the Russian Defense Ministry:
"At 15:12 Moscow time at the Plesetsk state test cosmodrome in the Arkhangelsk region,
a Sarmat fixed-based intercontinental ballistic missile was successfully launched from a silo
launcher."
It is likely that Russia's President Vladimir Putin would have highlighted it in his State
of the Union address if the missile launch worked this time too.
The timing of the test launch and the potential message it could have conveyed, whether intentional
or not, would have been unsettling nonetheless.
On the tactical front, while Sarmat may be more powerful and modern, American Minuteman
III is much more reliable.
It is to be noted that the new LGM-35A Sentinel ICBM is already being developed to replace
Minuteman III.
So, the Russian attempted threat was not a good idea in the first place and now that
it has failed it is an embarrassment.