A Russian intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) was fired from an underground silo on the country’s southern steppe Friday as part of a scheduled test to deliver a dummy warhead to a distant impact zone nearly 4,000 miles away. However, the missile barely made it 4,000 feet before veering off course. Russia’s military has not commented on the incident, but the crash was noticeable for miles around the Dombarovsky air base in Orenburg Oblast, close to the Russian-Kazakh border.
A video shared on the Russian blog MilitaryRussia.ru and widely circulated on social media showed the missile going off track immediately after launch, flipping upside down, losing power, and crashing not far from the launch site. According to Pavel Podvig, a senior researcher at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research in Geneva, the missile ejected a component before impacting the ground, possibly as part of a payload salvage sequence.
The crash produced a fireball and a toxic reddish-brown cloud, typical of the dangerous mix of hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide used to fuel Russia’s most powerful ICBMs. Recent satellite images reveal a crater and burn scar near the missile silo.
Analysts suggest that the launch was likely a test of Russia’s RS-28 Sarmat missile, which is designed to reach targets more than 11,000 miles (18,000 kilometers) away, making it the longest-range missile in the world.
### An Unusable Weapon
The Sarmat missile represents Russia’s cutting-edge heavy-duty ICBM, capable of carrying up to 10 large nuclear warheads or a mix of warheads and countermeasures, including hypersonic boost-glide vehicles, as noted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Essentially, the Sarmat is intended for potential use in a total nuclear confrontation between Russia and the United States.
Given this context, it’s not surprising that Russian officials often tout the missile’s capabilities. Russian President Vladimir Putin has described the Sarmat as a “truly unique weapon” that serves as a warning for those who threaten the country amid aggressive rhetoric. Dmitry Rogozin, the former head of Russia’s space agency, referred to the Sarmat as a “superweapon” after its initial test flight in 2022.
To date, what stands out about the Sarmat missile is its track record of failures. While the missile’s first full-scale test flight in 2022 reportedly went well, the program has since experienced a series of setbacks, including a catastrophic explosion last year that destroyed one of its underground silos in northern Russia.
