Last Updated on 03/09/2024 by Arun jain
On Monday, Reuters informed My finding is that Russia appears to be the first deployment site for its experimental nuclear-powered cruise missile, the Burevestnik—which the United States calls the SSC-X-9 Skyfall. The facility is nearly complete, suggesting the new missile could soon enter service with the Russian Strategic Rocket Force.
The site is located at a nuclear weapons storage facility, called Vologda-20, about 400 miles from Russia’s borders with Finland and Estonia, and has nine fixed launch sites supported by missile-handling facilities and nuclear weapons storage bunkers. Since the launch sites, missiles and warheads are all present at the same site, it is likely that the Burevestnik will be an on-alert missile ready to launch at a moment’s notice.
There is considerable publicity surrounding Burevestnik: US officials have Condemned Russia’s development of “radiation-spewing, nuclear-powered cruise missiles” and is called System “Flying Chernobyl.” Unlike standard cruise missiles, which are powered by jet engines, Burevestnik uses an unshielded nuclear reactor for propulsion. This gives it the ability to fly almost unlimited distances, at least in theory.
If deployed, the Burevestnik would be the first missile of its type to be actually fielded. The United States explored the concept of a nuclear-powered missile in the 1950s and 1960s under the banner of Project Pluto, but scrapped the project due to concerns that the system would pose a threat to the United States’ own population. Such concerns were validated in 2019 when Burevestnik explosion During the test and killed several Russian missile scientists.
Burevestnik’s advanced propulsion system and virtually unlimited range could allow Russia to use missiles in radical new ways. In 2020, United Kingdom Chief of Defense Intelligence General James Hockenhull told reporters that Moscow is “testing a nuclear-powered cruise missile system with global reach [that] would allow attacks from unpredictable directions” and would provide “near-indefinite latency,” meaning the missile could fly around a designated target for long periods of time before striking, potentially even circling the Earth.
The Loitering context has raised concerns that Russia could launch Burevestnik missiles in an emergency, which could then move closer to US and NATO targets while awaiting instructions. This would allow Moscow to strike quickly once the order is given, significantly reducing the time it takes for NATO to react to a Russian offensive. Some Analysts have even speculated that Russia could fly the Burevestniks over European territory as a signal before turning around and flying back, potentially intimidating NATO allies into backing down and giving in to Russian demands.
These assessments of Burevestnik’s potential capabilities, however, are technically infeasible. Russia is unlikely to use the new missile in this way because two factors limit its capabilities and potential uses: range and visibility.
However Claims According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the range of the missile is effectively unlimited, with significant costs to fly a great distance or long range. Missiles can usually find their location by communicating with satellites, but satellite signals can be easily jammed or spoofed. To ensure that the missile can operate without relying on satellites, it is also equipped with inertial navigation, which locates the missile’s position through a process of dead reckoning. By consulting mechanical accelerometers and gyroscopes, a missile can determine its position by closely recording its speed and direction and the length of its flight.
But over time, small errors in the missile’s guidance system compound, just as a mechanical clock eventually stops keeping time. Thus, keeping the missile flying in a loitering pattern for a long period of time will create a serious risk of it going off course and missing its target.
Russia could try to guide its missiles remotely, but the limited range of Russian communications systems—coupled with the small problem of Earth’s curvature—severely restricts the area in which Russia can actively guide missiles. It is unlikely that Russia could send missiles far from home and still be able to reliably communicate with them. If Russia eventually installs remote guidance, the missiles will still be vulnerable to electronic warfare activities.
However, this does not mean that Burevestnik’s extended range is useless. Cruise missiles are effectively disposable airplanes; Like airplanes, their range is determined by fuel-efficiency factors. The altitude at which a missile flies presents an important trade-off: range versus detection. The higher a conventional jet engine-powered missile flies, the more fuel efficient it becomes; Because the air is thinner, there is less drag. But cruise missiles flying at higher altitudes are also easier for radar. Conversely, a decrease in altitude allows missiles to evade detection more easily, but the thicker air requires jet engines to burn more fuel, significantly shortening the missile’s range.
The main advantage of Burevestnik’s nuclear-powered engine is that it does not require a trade-off between fuel efficiency and detectability. For example, when the Tomahawk missile of the United States, with a category At 770 to 1,550 miles, intercontinental targets cannot be reached, the Burevestnik’s engine could theoretically run for days, allowing the missile to fly from its base in Russia to targets even in the United States, while flying low to avoid radar. Although Burevestnik’s reactor would enable such a scheme, precisely guiding the missile to the target would be a major challenge.
Although Burevestnik may be more difficult to find, it is not invisible. Cruise missiles are tighter than other missiles because they generate a strong heat signature only at the moment of their launch. After that, the heat signature is smaller – undetectable, but more difficult to track, especially by satellites in space which must often be seen in cloudy weather. However, for Burevestnik, this advantage dissipates as long as Russia allows it to last. Keeping the missile on in-air standby for longer periods of time would give NATO land-, sea-, air- and space-based air-defense assets more time to maneuver to detect and intercept the missile.
Russia could have tried to mitigate this problem by making the launch system mobile, allowing it to hide where the missile originated, but it did not. Instead, Russia is building fixed launch sites, which will be closely watched by NATO reconnaissance capabilities for any sign of a launch. This makes Burewestnik flights easier to predict and easier to track.
Due to communication and accuracy problems, Burevestnik lacked the ability to truly surprise NATO. A good way to understand Burevestnik is as a direct way to penetrate US and NATO air defenses, capable of flying more or less directly towards its target at extremely low altitudes.
The real problem with Burevestnik is that Russia may be forced to pre-launch it in an emergency because its fixed deployment site is vulnerable to attack. Moreover, the missile has a very long travel time to intercontinental targets, requiring several hours rather than minutes, compared to intercontinental ballistic missiles. The Russian leader may feel pressured to launch the Burevestnik before the United States has a chance to shift its air defense assets and before the launch site is destroyed by NATO missiles — for example, conventional hypersonic missiles — against the United States. Deployment Germany in 2026.
Although Russian leaders may feel pressured to use the Burevestnik in advance, there is no reason why Moscow cannot refrain from launching a nuclear war using the missile. NATO states can try to prevent this by investing in military infrastructure that can reliably withstand and respond to a Russian nuclear first strike, making their targets less attractive in the first place. This means early targets—such as radars and airfields—especially in the United States, where assets have never been credibly threatened by Russian systems.
Burevestnik is not a wonder weapon, and the challenges it poses to NATO security are neither new nor manageable. It sounds scary on paper, but the technical impossibility of its mission limits its risk. Much of the hype surrounding the missile stems from Russian saber-rattling about its capabilities. In this context, perhaps one of the best things NATO can do to remain strong in a crisis is to call this weapon what it is – a terrorist weapon, not a silver bullet.
So far, the only people Burevestnik has killed are his own designers. Countering Russian propaganda will help keep it that way.
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