It’s no marvel Russian authorities like to talk up Sarmat’s abilities. Russian President Vladimir Putin has actually called Sarmat a “genuinely special weapon” that will “supply something to chew on for those who, in the heat of crazy aggressive rhetoric, attempt to threaten our nation.” Dmitry Rogozin, then the head of Russia’s area company, called the Sarmat rocket a “superweapon” after its very first test flight in 2022.

Far, what’s distinct about the Sarmat rocket is its tendency for failure. The rocket’s very first full-blown test flight in 2022 obviously worked out, however the program has actually suffered a string of successive failures ever since, most especially a disastrous surge in 2015 that ruined the Sarmat rocket’s underground silo in northern Russia.

The Sarmat is expected to change Russia’s aging R-36M2 tactical ICBM fleet, which was integrated in Ukraine. The RS-28, often called the Satan II, is a “item entirely of Russian market cooperation,” according to Russia’s Ministry of Defense.

The video of the rocket failure recently does not have the resolution to validate whether it was a Sarmat rocket or the older-model R-36M2, however experts concur it was more than likely a Sarmat. The rocket silo utilized for Friday’s test was just recently remodelled, possibly to transform it to support Sarmat tests after the damage of the brand-new rocket’s northern launch website in 2015.

“Work there started in Spring 2025, after the ice defrosted,” composed Etienne Marcuz, an expert on tactical weaponries at the Foundation for Strategic Research, a French think tank. The “immediate remodelling” of the rocket silo at Dombarovsky provides assistance for the hypothesis that recently’s mishap included the Sarmat, and not the R-36M2, which was last checked more than 10 years earlier, Marcuz composed on X.

“If this is certainly another Sarmat failure, it would be extremely destructive to the medium-term future of Russian deterrence,” Marcuz continued. “The aging R-36M2 rockets, which bring a substantial part of Russia’s tactical warheads, are seeing their replacement pressed even further into the future, while their upkeep– formerly dealt with by Ukraine up until 2014– stays extremely unpredictable.”

Podvig, the UN scientist who likewise runs the Russian Nuclear Forces blog website, concurs with Marcuz’s conclusions. With the R-36M2 rocket quickly to retire, “it is exceptionally not likely that the Rocket Forces would wish to evaluate launch them,” Podvig composed on his site. “This leaves Sarmat.”

The failure includes fresh unpredictability to the preparedness of Russia’s nuclear toolbox. If this were really a test of among Russia’s older ICBMs, the outcome would raise concerns about hardware decay and obsolescence. In the most likely case of a Sarmat test flight, it would be the current in a series of issues that have actually postponed its entry into service given that 2018.