The shockingly deadly missile is more than 3000 times more powerful than the bomb which leveled Hiroshima – and it is virtually undetectable.
As Russia faces condemnation across the planet for the state-sponsored act of terror on the streets of Salisbury, the test is being seen as a clear and hostile message of war to the world.
Putin and his cronies have reacted to evidence Russia ordered the poisoning of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury by raising tensions with barely veiled warnings of military action.
And the latest is the testing of the terrifying ‘Satan 2’ – formally known as an RS-28, which makes all Russia’s existing nukes look like firecrackers.
The RS-28 statistics make for frightening reading:
• A single RS-28 is capable of wiping out and area the size of France or Texas – or the entire UK with one blast
• The RS-28 has an incredibly short launch-burn phase – the time US satellites find it easiest tot track – and it then basically disappears
• Because of its increased trajectory the Satan-2 can travel over the South Pole to hit the West rather than the shorter North Pole route. This again means it is invisible to US tracking satellites.
• The RS-28 carries 16 nuclear warheads which can be individually targeted – and a raft of high-tech counter-measures to further avoid detection.
• The Satan-2 packs a 50 MEGATON nuclear punch – more than 3000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.
Russian General Valery Gerasimov told Russia’s state-owned news agency TASS the country was ready to proceed with the second test of the RS-28.
He added: “The first launch of this missile took place at the end of December last year. At the moment preparations are in full swing at the Plesetsk cosmodrome for another pop-up test.”
A pop-up test is believed to refer to the missile’s systems used to eject from its silo as a “pop-up” test.
The Satan-2 is due to enter service in 2019 or 2020.
However not all military experts are convinced the Satan 2 (the US military’s code for the RS-28) will make the deadline.
Two weeks ago Putin took to the world stage to brag about the RS-28. But a video of the testing only showed live footage of the missile leaving the silo before defaulting to a computerised animation.
Both the US and UK have called Putin’s talk of new nuclear systems “irresponsible”.