Putin: Sarmat ICBM on Combat Duty by Year End After Test

President Vladimir Putin announced on Tuesday that Russia plans to place its new RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile on combat duty by the end of this year, following a successful test launch reported by the commander of Russia's Strategic Missile Forces.

Colonel General Sergei Karakayev informed Putin during a conversation that the missile was launched at 11:15 a.m. Moscow time and met all mission objectives. State television broadcast footage of the test, which Karakayev said paves the way for deploying the first Sarmat-equipped regiment at the Uzhur unit in Russia's Krasnoyarsk region. Putin confirmed the timeline, stating, "The Sarmat will indeed be placed on combat duty at the end of the current year."

Russian officials described the Sarmat, a silo-based heavy liquid-fueled ICBM also known to Western analysts as Satan-2, as the world's most powerful missile system. Putin highlighted its warhead yield as more than four times that of any comparable Western system, with a range exceeding 35,000 kilometers (21,750 miles). He added that it can follow both ballistic and suborbital trajectories, enabling it to reach targets including those in the United States or...