In March 2018, as part of his

Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly The annual Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly () is a speech given by the Russian President to outline the state and condition in which Russia is in. It is given in front of a joint meeting of the two houses of the Russian Parliament: ...

, the

Russian president The president of Russia, officially the president of the Russian Federation (), is the executive head of state of Russia. The president is the chair of the Federal State Council and the supreme commander-in-chief of the Russian Armed Forces. I ...

Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012, having previously served from 2000 to 2008. Putin also served as Prime Minister of Ru ...

announced six novel

nuclear Nuclear may refer to: Physics Relating to the nucleus of the atom: *Nuclear engineering *Nuclear physics *Nuclear power *Nuclear reactor *Nuclear weapon *Nuclear medicine *Radiation therapy *Nuclear warfare Mathematics * Nuclear space *Nuclear ...

or dual-use weapons systems, popularly dubbed " super weapons" (). Putin stated that together the weapons provided

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

with a strategic capability that was impossible for

America The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

to intercept, restoring Russia's

nuclear deterrence Deterrence theory refers to the scholarship and practice of how threats of using force by one party can convince another party to refrain from initiating some other course of action. The topic gained increased prominence as a military strategy d ...

capability in the face of American technological developments following America's withdrawal from the

Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, also known as the ABM Treaty or ABMT, was an arms control treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union on the limitation of the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems used in defending areas against ball ...

. The "super weapons" named were: * The Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle * The

9M730 Burevestnik The 9M730 Burevestnik (; " Storm petrel", NATO reporting name: SSC-X-9 Skyfall) is a Russian low-flying, nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed cruise missile under development for the Russian Armed Forces. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, ...

nuclear-powered cruise missile * The

3M22 Zircon The 3M22 Zircon,also spelled as Tsirkon (, NATO reporting name: SS-N-33), is a Russian scramjet-powered, nuclear-capable hypersonic cruise missile. Produced by NPO Mashinostroyeniya for the Russian Navy, the missile utilizes the 3S-14 launc ...

scramjet-powered anti-ship hypersonic cruise missile * The

Kh-47M2 Kinzhal The Kh-47M2 Kinzhal ( rus, Х-47М2 Кинжал, p=kʲɪn'ʐaɫ, 'Dagger'; NATO reporting name: AS-24 Killjoy) is a Russian air-launched ballistic missile. It has an estimated range of and a reported top speed of Mach 10. It can carry either ...

hypersonic air-launched ballistic missile * The

Poseidon Poseidon (; ) is one of the twelve Olympians in ancient Greek religion and mythology, presiding over the sea, storms, earthquakes and horses.Burkert 1985pp. 136–139 He was the protector of seafarers and the guardian of many Hellenic cit ...

unmanned underwater vehicle * The

RS-28 Sarmat The RS-28 Sarmat (, named after the Sarmatians; NATO reporting name: SS-X-29 or SS-X-30), often colloquially referred to as Satan II by media outlets, is a three-stage Russian silo-based, liquid-fueled, HGV-capable and FOBS-capable super-h ...

liquid-fueled,

MIRV A multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) is an exoatmospheric ballistic missile payload containing several warheads, each capable of being aimed to hit a different target. The concept is almost invariably associated with i ...

-equipped super-heavy ICBM

Deployment

The Kh-47M2 Kinzhal missile started test operations in December 2017 and has been deployed since 2018. On 27 December 2019,

TASS The Russian News Agency TASS, or simply TASS, is a Russian state-owned news agency founded in 1904. It is the largest Russian news agency and one of the largest news agencies worldwide. TASS is registered as a Federal State Unitary Enterpri ...

reported that the first missile regiment armed with the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle officially entered combat duty. , the 9M730 Burevestnik nuclear-powered missile was still under development. The

Nyonoksa radiation accident The Nyonoksa radiation accident, Arkhangelsk explosion or Nyonoksa explosion () occurred on 8 August 2019 near Nyonoksa, a village under the administrative jurisdiction of Severodvinsk, Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russian Federation. Five military and ci ...

appears to have been caused by an accident while testing a prototype. TASS reported that the first contract for producing the RS-28 Sarmat missiles was signed in August 2022. On 16 January 2023, TASS reported that the first batch of the Poseidon nuclear-powered UUVs had been manufactured.

Combat history

Of the six systems, only two are known to have been used in action: the

, which has been employed in a non-nuclear capacity during the

Russian invasion of Ukraine On 24 February 2022, , starting the largest and deadliest war in Europe since World War II, in a major escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War, conflict between the two countries which began in 2014. The fighting has caused hundreds of thou ...

, and

launched from the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal sea, marginal Mediterranean sea (oceanography), mediterranean sea lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bound ...

onto land target. In 2023, it was claimed that a Kinzhal missile had been shot down by the Ukrainian air defense forces using a

MIM-104 Patriot The MIM-104 Patriot is a mobile interceptor missile surface-to-air missile (SAM) system, the primary such system used by the United States Army and several allied states. It is manufactured by the U.S. defense contractor Raytheon and derives it ...

missile defence system. On 10 May 2023, the Ukrainian politician

Vitali Klitschko Vitalii Volodymyrovych Klychko (; ; born 19 July 1971), known as Vitali Klitschko, is a Ukrainian politician and former professional boxer. He serves as mayor of Kyiv,Bild ''Bild'' (, ) or ''Bild-Zeitung'' (, ) is a German tabloid newspaper published by Axel Springer SE. The paper is published from Monday to Saturday; on Sundays, its sister paper '' Bild am Sonntag'' () is published instead, which has a differen ...

journalists in

Kyiv Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

. In contradiction to Ukrainian claims, Russian media reported that the fragments closely resembled the concrete-piercing BETAB-500ShP

aerial bomb An aerial bomb is a type of Explosive weapon, explosive or Incendiary device, incendiary weapon intended to travel through the Atmosphere of Earth, air on a predictable trajectory. Engineers usually develop such bombs to be dropped from an aircra ...

. On 16 May 2023, Ukraine's air command claimed to have intercepted all six Kinzhal missiles that had been launched during a Russian attack.

References

{{Russia-mil-stub

Deployment

Combat history

See also

References