Russia has issued a chilling nuclear warning to the West as Vladimir Putin deploy his Satan II nuclear missiles on “combat duty”, according to Moscow’s space agency.
The Sarmat, or Satan II, missile is a behemoth nuclear weapon capable of carrying up to 15 warheads across the globe and wiping out the United States. The weapon can also carry up to 24 Russian Avangard hypersonic glide vehicles, each capable of carrying a nuclear warhead 27 times the speed of sound.
The super heavy intercontinental ballistic missiles can reportedly reach the UK – 1,600 miles from where they are stationed – in just six minutes.
With a range of about 11,000 miles, strategic targets in the US such as New York or Washington DC are well within striking distance.
“The Sarmat strategic complex has been put on combat duty,” the head of the Russian space agency Yuri Borisov told a group of students earlier today.
The terrifying missiles were slated to become operational at the end of 2022, however, this was delayed for unknown reasons.
Last year, Vladimir Putin said: “In the near future, Sarmat ICBMs will be put on combat duty for the first time.
“We know there will be a certain delay in time but this does not change our plans – everything will be done.”
Sarmat is a “strategic weapon, reserved for strategic targets, like the United States,” Koffler, who wrote the book “Putin’s Playbook: Russia’s Secret Plan to Defeat America” and has briefed the Pentagon, the White House, National Security Council and NATO on Russia’s nuclear doctrine, explained.
“But Putin would never attack the US homeland kinetically, especially with nuclear weapons, unless of course, Russia detects signs that we attack them first. So this Sarmat move is for deterrence purposes,” she added.
After Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Putin claimed Sarmat would “reliably ensure the security of Russia from external threats and make those who, in the heat of aggressive rhetoric, try to threaten our country, think twice,” she said.
Koffler said that much of Russia’s media, including RIA Novosti, Gazeta and Young Moscow Communist, has published an English article translated into Russian claiming that Sarmat could wipe out London in six minutes.
“So the deterrence message appears to be directed at the UK in this case, which is of course a committed supporter of Ukraine,”Koffler noted. “Again, Putin will not attack London or any NATO country, unless Russian intelligence concludes that Russia is about to be attacked by NATO.”
She said the fear of “unintended escalation” is what keeps her and other national security professionals “up at night.”
Law enforcement vehicles are seen in front of the Kremlin’s Spasskaya Tower
The Kremlin’s Spasskaya Tower in central Moscow, Russia. (Reuters/Evgenia Novozhenina/File)
“In other words, when a kinetic strike is authorized by mistake because of a flawed assessment by intelligence services and conflict spirals out of control,” she explained.
“That is what wargaming conducted by the US intelligence community has revealed. A local or regional conflict such as the one between Russia and Ukraine now spills out because of miscalculation or misunderstanding, dragging in the US and NATO. At that point, it has to go nuclear, in Russia’s view because of its conventional inferiority vis-à-vis NATO. This is why nuclear weapons have always been the centerpiece of Russia’s war-fighting doctrine. The longer this conflict drags on, the higher the risk of a direct war between Russia and the U.S.”
