VLADIMIR PUTIN is set to test the world’s biggest missile by flying it over the South Pole after the deadly weapon was readied for “combat duty”.
The former spy will flex his nuclear muscle with a test-run of the RS-28 Sarmat – more commonly known as Satan-2 – according to a shocking report from Russian state media.
East2WestVladimir Putin is set to test the world’s biggest missile by flying it over the South Pole[/caption]
East2WestThe deadly weapon has only had one successful flight test across Russia[/caption]
East2WestA source admitted to Russian media that tests of the fifth generation missile are behind schedule and ‘have not yet been completed’[/caption]
Putin’s first regiment to be armed with the 208-ton intercontinental weapon will be put on “combat duty” next month.
This is despite an astonishing admission that the “unstoppable” 15,880mph doomsday missile system – the size of a 14-storey tower block – is not properly tested.
Putin’s own state news agency TASS reported that “even a truncated LCI [flight development tests], and assuming all launches are successful, would require several more launches, including via the South Pole”.
This claim over the South Pole was hastily censored from the report but remains in cached versions.
It is likely to trigger deep alarm in the West as Putin prepares to deploy a rocket designed to be his ultimate nuclear strike weapon against NATO countries.
However, it appears to have only had one successful flight test across Russia.
Nonetheless, a defence source also told Russian state news agency TASS that the first Sarmat regiment will “consist of a command post and several silo launchers.”
The regiment “is part of the Uzhur missile formation of the Strategic Missile Forces,” it was added.
The regiment is already on “experimental combat duty” in the Krasnoyarsk region of Siberia, said another source.
Yet the first source admitted tests of the Putin fifth generation missile are behind schedule and “have not yet been completed”.
It’s been labelled as an embarrassment for the autocrat, with only one fully confirmed successful test known – in April 2022.
Multiple tests of other Russian nuclear-capable missiles have already failed, including the Yars and Bulava missiles.
TASS reported: “The Sarmat flight tests are currently being carried out from the Plesetsk spaceport to the Kura training ground in Kamchatka.”
But ultimately Putin will need to test his new nuclear toy by flying it over the South Pole.
The monster hypersonic missile is designed to strike the West by flying over the North or South Poles, making it impossible for air defences to strike down.
Defence minister Sergei Shoigu previously stated that the Makeyev missile design bureau in Miass was “solving the task of equipping the first missile regiment with the Sarmat complex at the main facility of the Strategic Missile Forces”.
Putin has previously insisted that his designers had “finished work” on the Sarmat “super heavy missile”.
He said: “We just need to finish some of the procedures in a purely administrative and bureaucratic way, and move on to mass production and put them on combat duty.
“We will do this in the near future.”
But production is already more than a year behind schedule.
Eleven months ago, Putin said: “In the near future, Sarmat ICBMs will be put on combat duty for the first time.
“We know there will be a certain delay in time but this does not change our plans.”
The Sarmat-Satan-2 complex is due to replace the Voevoda – or Satan – missile which has been in service since the 1980s.
So far only one Sarmat-Satan-2 test is confirmed, yet Putin evidently intends to send it over the pristine South Pole.
East2WestPutin will need to test his new nuclear toy by flying it over the South Pole[/caption]