Images showing a devastated launch site have been circulating since this weekend. This second failure raises questions about the state of development of the Sarmat, which Moscow presents as “ready for combat”.
Since Saturday, September 21, various satellite photographs of the Plesetsk launch site, in the far northwest of Russia, have shown a new launch failure of a Sarmat missile, also called Satan 2. This new-generation intercontinental ballistic projectile was designed to modernize the Soviet nuclear arsenal. The Kremlin and its relays regularly wave the threat of these new weapons, presented as “already in service”, against Ukraine or its Western allies. But this new failure (the second, out of three shots), raises questions about the state of development of the Sarmat, which Moscow presents as “ready for battle”.
The eyes of initiated observers (and American spy planes, visible on aerial tracking sites) had been pointed for several days at the launch sites east of the Plesetsk cosmodrome. The upcoming launch had been betrayed by a NOTAM, an air restriction notice, similar to those issued for previous launches, in the Kara Sea, between September 19 and 23. As early as September 21, a first sign indicated an abnormal situation on the launch site: the NASA satellite of the Firms program, whose map shows in real time the fires in the world, displayed a significant thermal signature for several hours around the silo.
Forest fire and emergency vehicles
Next comes the first photo from Planet, a satellite imagery company, taken during the early hours of September 21. It shows a huge crater, tens of meters wide, left at the site of the test silo, from which the missile was to emerge. A second photo from Maxar, another satellite imagery company, shows this impressive crater, and serious damage to nearby structures. A forest fire and emergency vehicles are also visible in the immediate vicinity of the launch pad. Was this a problem during takeoff or something that occurred during preparation for the launch? It is difficult to know more, except that the Sarmat exploded in its silo, or right next to it.
As already written CheckNews Two years ago, Russia already had a large and varied nuclear arsenal. But these new missiles, touted as much faster and more devastating (when the existing Russian nuclear arsenal is already enough to destroy the planet several times over), are regularly brandished on talk shows on the Kremlin’s state channels, or in other propaganda pieces, such as this song glorifying the missile. They are also found in the speeches of officials, such as the President of the Duma (the Russian Parliament) who threatened on Thursday, September 19, to bomb the European Parliament with a Sarmat, while stating that the projectile would reach Paris in 3 minutes 20 seconds, which CheckNews has already been overturned in 2022.
Two out of three shots missed
The first and only successful Sarmat launch took place in April 2022. A long-planned launch, which was not directly linked to the Ukrainian conflict, as the development of this new system had been underway for years. The objective announced by various Russian officials at the end of 2021 was to deploy a first operational regiment by the end of 2022. A date already shifted from the initial project of entering service in 2018-2020. Finally, Vladimir Putin announced in June 2023 that in a “near future”, THE Sarmat and their silos would be ready for combat. A few months later, in September 2023, the head of the Russian civil space agency had outbid and affirmed that the latter were operational. Which Vladimir Putin had finally repeated in February 2024.
But as several specialists on the subject pointed out at the time, such as Hans Kristensen, a specialist in monitoring nuclear arsenals, this statement by the Russian leader clashed with the fact that the Sarmats had still not finished their test flights. Worse still, the ratio of successful launches is far from positive, with two out of three launches now failing. The April 2022 launch was the only one that was successful. In February 2023, several anonymous security sources cited by CNN mentioned another failed launch of Sarmat. These sources also specified that the Russians had warned Washington of the upcoming test. The first failed launch to which is now added this weekend’s failure.
As Russian military analyst Pavel Luzin pointed out in New York Times in September 2023, that is, before the second failure recorded this weekend, the operational deployment of the missile was still largely theoretical, given the limited tests of the Sarmat.
Related News :