Moscow launched new nuclear threats on Monday as the war in Ukraine enters a critical phase. Russia is continuing work to put the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile – known as Satan 2, part of its strategic nuclear arsenal – into combat service, state news agency TASS reported on Wednesday.

The RS-28 Sarmat missile, the world’s so-called “deadliest” nuclear weapon, is designed to carry nuclear warheads to strike targets thousands of miles away in the United States or Europe, but its development has been slowed by delays and test failures .

In September, experts said Russia appeared to have suffered a catastrophic failure in the missile’s latest test, leaving a deep crater in the launch silo.

The Sarmat is one of six new Russian strategic weapons unveiled by Russian President Vladimir Putin on March 1, 2018. The RS-28 Sarmat made its first test flight on April 20, 2022, and the Russian government said at the time that the missile would put into service in 2022. On August 16, 2022, a state contract was signed for the construction and supply of the strategic missile system.

At the end of December 2017, the first successful test launch of the rocket took place at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Oblast Oblast. The missile reportedly flew several tens of kilometers and fell within the test range.

On March 1, 2018, Russian President Vladimir Putin, in his annual address to the Federal Assembly, stated that “the active testing phase” of the missile had begun. Shortly afterwards, an unnamed military source said that the 2007 information about the Sarmat missile had been leaked to the West on purpose. On March 30, 2018, the Russian Ministry of Defense released a video showing Sarmat performing its second successful test launch at the Plesetsk cosmodrome.

On December 24, 2019, during the exhibition of modern weapons systems at the National Defense Management Center, it was reported that Sarmat is capable of a “sub-orbital flight of 35,000 kilometers”. The tests were initially expected to be completed in 2021 and, during the period 2020-2027, “twenty missile regiments to be re-equipped with the RS-28”.