The RS-28 Sarmat: Russia’s Satan II

16 May 2022

On 22 April 2022, Russia completed its first full test-fire of the RS-28 Sarmat Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) with an estimated range of over 11,000 miles and flying at speeds of 16,000 miles per hour. The launch came on the heels of the 14 April sinking of the Russian Black Sea fleet flagship cruiser Moskva, which embarrassed and enraged the Russian government, needing an immediate distraction at home and abroad for the loss of the warship. After all, it is difficult to explain to the public how one loses one’s flagship cruiser in what is largely a land war and to an opponent without a navy. Therefore, a distraction was necessary.

The ICBM launch also fits the pattern of Russian bellicose comments on nuclear war with NATO. Tests of strategic and theatre nuclear weapons, including the so-called nuclear ‘doomsday torpedoes’, nuclear-powered cruise missiles, hypersonic re-entry vehicles, and anti-satellite weapons, are meant to terrorise the West. Accordingly, the US called off a planned Minutemen III launch so as not to further heighten tensions with Russia.

Counterforce and missile defence

The Sarmat ICBM is the intended successor to Russia’s Soviet-era SS-18 "Satan" Mod-5 ICBM and is nicknamed ‘Satan II’. The ICBM is expected to replace the SS-18 as the mainstay of the Russian land-based nuclear deterrent. It is the largest in the world. The missile is liquid-fuelled, thus giving it enormous lift and the ability to carry 10 Multiple Independent Re-entry Vehicles (MIRV) along with decoys and penetration aids. Liquid fuelled rockets have the highest energy per unit of fuel mass, variable thrust, and a restart capability. They can be given fuel to either increase or decrease their range and payload. The Sarmat can also carry several Avangard Hypersonic Glide Vehicles (HGV) with a speed of Mach 20-27 and a nuclear payload of a warhead with a yield of two megatons. The advantage of an HGV over other vehicles is that an endo-atmospheric flight path makes them more immune to an exo-kinetic interceptor like SM-3.

When asking whether it is a deterrence game-changer in the short and long run, the answer is likely no. To counter the Sarmat, Washington can move more and more of its vulnerable land-based deterrent to the US sea-based portion of the triad and onto submarines.

The RS-28 was launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia and hit its intended target with a dummy warhead in the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia's Far East. The long-range of the Sarmat gives it the ability to strike targets from both over the North and South poles. All of the North American Aerospace Defense Command’s (NORAD) early warning radar sensors look north, meaning it has no way to track missiles moving from the Southern Hemisphere to the north. With its payload of 10 warheads or Avangard HGVs, it is a counter-force weapon geared to attack US land-based nuclear forces. Its speed and power give it deep penetration power and the penetration aids allow the system to evade modern missile defences. When armed with a conventional or nuclear warhead, the HGV is launched by rocket, detaches and glides in a lower orbit, and manoeuvres to its intended target at very high rates of speed. The Russian view seems to be that, either armed with MIRV nuclear warheads or HGVs, the Sarmat is invincible and will find its way to North American targets with little or no warning from US missile defences. Never mind the fact that US missile defences were never geared to defend against a Russian missile attack, but created to deter and defend against attack by a rogue power like North Korea.

Putin’s superweapon dreams

So, what does this mean for deterrence between Russia and the West, particularly the United States? The RS-28 Sarmat ICBM without question is a powerful counter-force weapon system geared to defeat modern and future US missile defences and to destroy the US land-based portion of its nuclear triad before it even has a chance to launch. The fact that it could be launched out over the South Pole and travel to a target in the north makes it a candidate for a fractional orbits bombardment system. Its characteristics also make it a potential first strike ‘war-fighting’ nuclear weapon system so entrenched in Russian and Soviet nuclear doctrine. Like most of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s new nuclear weapons systems, including the nuclear doomsday torpedoes, nuclear-powered cruise missiles, and hypersonic reentry vehicles, it is both terrifying and destabilising.

When asking whether it is a deterrence game-changer in the short and long run, the answer is likely no. To counter the Sarmat, Washington can move more and more of its vulnerable land-based deterrent to the US sea-based portion of the triad and onto submarines. Such a move would render the purpose and use of the RS-28 irrelevant and leave it as just a system to bust cities. In any case, its use as a first strike or pre-emptive weapon is rendered pointless by the current US submarine-based deterrent, which would survive any first strike and obliterate its opponent’s cities. Finally, based on the Russian military’s current performance in Ukraine and the inherent weaknesses now apparent in its conventional forces, all it has left to deter a great power opponent is its nuclear forces. Moscow’s sabre-rattling at the West and NATO should be seen in this context.

DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.

Author biography

Joe Varner is the author of Canada's Asia-Pacific Security Dilemma and an Adjunct Scholar at West Point's Modern War Institute. Image credit: Russian Defence Ministry (screenshot).