Putin’s Armageddon: Russia Tests World’s First & Most Dangerous New Nuclear-Powered Nuclear Burevestnik Cruise Missile. Russia’s Putin has startled the world and more so shocked America by declaring that Russia has successfully tested its nuclear-powered Burevestnik cruise missile, a nuclear-capable long range rather unlimited range weapon Moscow says can pierce any defence shield. President Vladimir Putin says that Russia will move towards deploying the weapon.
Shailesh Kumar, National Defence
New Delhi, 28 October 2025
The test, alongside a nuclear drill last week, sends a message that Russia, in Putin’s words, will never bow to pressure from the West over the war in Ukraine as U.S. President Donald Trump takes a tougher stance against Russia to push for a ceasefire.
If you recall National Defence stories, in our analysis we time and again said that US President Donald Trump’s stand on stopping the Russia Ukraine war is a farce. US Intelligence and deep state is worried about the Russia’s hypersonic and cruise missile systems and would always want to contain Russia by forcing it to keep engaged in war with Ukriane.
Moving back to the Burevestnik Cruise Missile Test, Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff of Russia’s armed forces, told Putin that the missile travelled 14,000 km, which is 8,700 miles and was in the air for about 15 hours when it was tested on October 21.
Russia says the 9M730 Burevestnik (Storm Petrel), which Russia calls a flying Chernobyl- and dubbed the SSC-X-9 Skyfall by NATO – is “invincible” to current and future missile defences, with an almost unlimited range and unpredictable flight path.
“It is a unique ware which nobody else in the world has,” Putin, dressed in camouflage fatigues at a meeting with generals overseeing the war in Ukraine, said in remarks released by the Kremlin on Sunday.
The Burevestnik is one of the six new Russian strategic weapons unveiled by Russian President Vladimir Putin on 1 March 2018. Putin has cast the weapon as a response to moves by the United States to build a missile defence shield after Washington in 2001 unilaterally withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and to enlarge the NATO military alliance.
Putin said that he had once been told by Russian specialists that the weapon was unlikely to ever be possible, but now, he said, its “crucial testing” had been concluded.
He told Gerasimov, a trusted wartime commander, that Russia needed to understand how to class the weapon and prepare infrastructure for deploying the Burevestnik.
This effort bears similarity to the discontinued US Project Pluto from 1957, which although functional, was perceived as too provocative, less effective than intercontinental ballistic missiles, and presented radiological emissions that made scheduling test flights difficult.
A cruise missile has the advantage over a ballistic missile of being maneuvrable and able to fly under and around missile defense radars and interceptors. However, conventional rocket-propelled missiles have a limited flight time and range.
Power from nuclear fission offers far more energy from a given mass of fuel which, if it could be used for propulsion, would hypothetically allow a missile to be launched far outside the defensive zone of a target, to take a circuitous route that avoids defenses, and to loiter for an extended period.
The United States developed a Supersonic Low Altitude Missile nuclear-powered cruise missile during the 1950s, achieving successful full-power testing of Tory II-A and -C, but abandoned the project, in part due to the radioactive pollution produced by deployment.
But the timing of the missile test – and its announcement by Putin in fatigues at a meeting at a command point with generals in charge of the Ukraine war – sends a signal to the West and to Trump in particular.
US President recently has announced that US is developing Golden Dome, a missile defense shield against hypersonic weapons and would be the best in the world to mitigate the hypersonic threats. However, Russia’s Burevestnik is far more dangerous and literally invincible as it can fly very low far below the radar coverage.
The missile however, may have potential to radiate the atomoshere from which it may pass as it is powered by nuclear reactor. By announcing the successful testing Putin has sent as strong signal to the US and directly to his friend Trump, who in a farce called Russia as a “paper tiger” for failing to swiftly subdue Ukraine, the message is that Russia remains a global military competitor, especially on nuclear weapons, and that Moscow’s overtures on nuclear arms control should be acted on.
Putin’s message for the broader West, after the United States moved to provide Ukraine with intelligence on long-range energy infrastructure targets in Russia, is that Moscow can strike back if it wants to.
News agency reuters has published that after The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration has lifted a key restriction on Ukraine’s use of some long-range missiles provided by Western allies, Putin said on Thursday that if Russia was attacked, the response would be “very serious, if not overwhelming.” Russia earlier had used Oreshnik Missile against Ukraine however without warheads to send a message to the west.
Gerasimov said that the Burevestnik missile had flown on nuclear power and that this test had been different because it flew for such a long distance, though the range was essentially unlimited. He said it could defeat any anti-missile defences.
According to a Russian newspaper, the missile was developed by All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Experimental Physics in Sarov, and it is manufactured by NPO Novator in Yekaterinburg. According to another Russian newspaper, “Burevestnik” will be adopted by the Russian military no sooner than 2027. It’s adoption will not violate the terms of the nuclear arms reduction treaty between the United States and the Russian Federation (New START), which Russia suspended (but did not leave) on February 2023-02-21.
Interestingly, despite credible intelligence, the West including US was confused about the Burevestnik testing for many years. On 9 August 2019, the Russian nuclear energy agency Rosatom confirmed a release of radioactivity at the State Central Navy Testing Range and stated it was linked to an accident involving the test of an “isotope power source for a liquid-fuelled rocket engine”. Five weapons scientists were killed in the accident. Nonproliferation expert Jeffrey Lewis and Federation of American Scientists fellow Ankit Panda suspect the incident resulted from a test of the Burevestnik cruise missile.
However, other arms control experts disputed the assertions: Ian Williams of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and James Acton of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace expressed skepticism over Moscow’s financial and technical capabilities to field the weapon, while Michael Kofman of the Wilson Center concluded that the explosion was probably not related to Burevestnik but instead to the testing of another military platform.
Putin on Wednesday oversaw a test of Russia’s strategic nuclear forces on land, sea and air to rehearse their readiness and command structure. Gerasimov said that training launches of Yars and Sineva intercontinental ballistic missiles had been completed along with two Kh-102 air-launched cruise missiles.
“The so-called modernity of our nuclear deterrent forces is at the highest level,” Putin said, higher than any other nuclear power.
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