Moscow Confirms Effective Evaluation of Nuclear-Powered Burevestnik Cruise Missile

Russia has tested the atomic-propelled Burevestnik strategic weapon, according to the state's leading commander.

"We have launched a multi-hour flight of a nuclear-powered missile and it traversed a 14,000km distance, which is not the limit," Top Army Official the commander told President Vladimir Putin in a public appearance.

The low-altitude advanced armament, first announced in 2018, has been portrayed as having a theoretically endless flight path and the ability to avoid anti-missile technology.

Foreign specialists have earlier expressed skepticism over the weapon's military utility and the nation's statements of having effectively trialed it.

The national leader stated that a "concluding effective evaluation" of the armament had been carried out in 2023, but the assertion could not be independently verified. Of a minimum of thirteen documented trials, just two instances had limited accomplishment since several years ago, as per an arms control campaign group.

The general stated the missile was in the air for fifteen hours during the evaluation on 21 October.

He noted the missile's vertical and horizontal manoeuvring were assessed and were confirmed as up to specification, based on a domestic media outlet.

"Therefore, it displayed advanced abilities to evade missile and air defence systems," the news agency stated the general as saying.

The projectile's application has been the subject of intense debate in military and defence circles since it was first announced in recent years.

A 2021 report by a American military analysis unit determined: "A nuclear-powered cruise missile would give Russia a singular system with intercontinental range capability."

Yet, as a global defence think tank commented the same year, Moscow encounters major obstacles in making the weapon viable.

"Its integration into the state's stockpile potentially relies not only on surmounting the substantial engineering obstacle of securing the dependable functioning of the nuclear-propulsion unit," specialists noted.

"There occurred numerous flight-test failures, and a mishap resulting in a number of casualties."

A defence publication cited in the analysis states the weapon has a flight distance of between 10,000 and 20,000km, enabling "the missile to be stationed anywhere in Russia and still be able to strike targets in the United States mainland."

The identical publication also says the projectile can travel as close to the ground as 50 to 100 metres above the surface, causing complexity for defensive networks to stop.

The weapon, code-named Skyfall by a foreign security organization, is thought to be powered by a nuclear reactor, which is intended to engage after initial propulsion units have launched it into the air.

An examination by a news agency the previous year pinpointed a site 295 miles north of Moscow as the possible firing point of the armament.

Employing space-based photos from last summer, an specialist informed the outlet he had detected multiple firing positions being built at the location.

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