The debates on Russian state television are taking an increasingly worrying turn. While the Russian army announced, on April 20, the first “successful” test firing of its intercontinental ballistic missile Sarmat, also known as “Satan 2”, journalists on set had fun calculating the time it would take for one of these machines to reach the various European capitals.
This weapon is reputed to be able to level a country of a size equivalent to that of France.
According to available information, the “Satan 2” nuclear missile would therefore be the most powerful ever designed to date, and no missile defense technology would be able to stop it.
According to Vladimir Putin, this fifth-generation intercontinental heavy ballistic missile would be able to “outwit all modern anti-aircraft systems”.
Its official name is “RS-28 Sarmat”. It was developed to replace the aging ‘R-36M’ missiles which were nicknamed ‘Satan’ by NATO experts. It is therefore natural that his successor has recovered the nickname “Satan 2”.
Twelve nuclear warheads
The missile would have an action capacity of 10,000 kilometers, putting European cities like London or Paris, but also cities on the American west coast, in its line of sight.
In addition, Satan 2 could contain up to twelve nuclear warheads, giving it the ability to destroy in a few seconds a territory “the size of Texas or France”, according to information from Russian television.
An “invulnerable” weapon
In May 2021, the Russian news agency TASS claimed that Vladimir Putin’s army would have had the ambition to carry out three tests, in the third quarter of 2021, in a field at the “Kura” test base in the region of Kamchatka”.
The press agency had on this occasion described this weapon as “invulnerable”.
For its part, the Pentagon reacted to the “routine” test of the Russian army, considering that it was “not a threat”.
