2024-09-08 01:38:32
When analyzing satellite images, experts discovered a suspicious area in Russia’s far north. Putin’s “miracle weapon” could be lurking underground.
Russia never tires of terrorizing Ukraine with air attacks. In the last few days, large cities such as Kiev, Kharkiv and Dnipro have been subjected to attacks by the Russian military, which is bombarding the neighboring country with missile attacks. Many people are dying and injured. Meanwhile, ruler Vladimir Putin is being honored with a first-class state reception in Mongolia – although the country is actually obliged to arrest the dictator by means of an international arrest warrant.
With appearances like the one in Mongolia, Putin is showing the West how little he cares about its standards. At the same time, he is diligently converting his country to a war economy and is also constantly arming the military. Now experts have discovered a particularly critical infrastructure of the Russian arms complex. At the Vologda-20 missile base, they claim to have identified underground bunkers in which they suspect the “9M370 Burevestnik” is located. This is a new type of missile that is powered by a small nuclear reactor.
The “Burevestnik” (German: “storm bird”) is said to have fearsome qualities. It is supposedly unstoppable for enemy air defense systems, and its air-cooled nuclear engine gives it a range of up to 25,000 kilometers – or so the Russians claim. Putin himself said a few years ago that the missile would even be able to overcome the American missile shield. A bold claim.
Vladimir Putin likes to talk about “miracle weapons”. So far, however, none of Putin’s supposed miracle weapons have led to extraordinary successes on the battlefield – although Ukraine has clearly had its problems in recent months in view of increased attacks by the Russians with a large number of drones and different types of missiles. While the Ukrainian air defenses said they were able to shoot down around 80 percent of Russian missiles and drones last year, this number had fallen by half by May of this year, according to a report in the New York Times. And this despite the fact that the country had been provided with more air defense systems by the West.
According to military experts, the fact that Russian attacks repeatedly overcome the Ukrainian air defenses is due to the strategy of the attacks, rather than to specific weapons systems. The Russians overwhelm the enemy’s air defenses with their sheer superiority in cruise missiles. The idea that a certain type of missile cannot be defended, as Putin claimed in a speech in 2018 based on the “Kinzhal”, has long been refuted. According to US experts, the Ukrainians demonstrably succeeded in shooting down the missile using conventional Patriot systems.
In the case of the “Burevestnik” (which is called “Skyfall” in NATO code SSC-X-9), however, things are said to be different. Putin himself described the cruise missile as “invisible”. The particular danger of the weapon system lies in the fact that it can carry nuclear warheads. It is not yet possible to say independently what stage of development the system is in.
In 2023, the Kremlin ruler claimed in a speech broadcast on state television that a “final test of the Burevestnik” had been “successful”. According to US experts, the system is still far from being ready for series production, and an early test of the rocket is said to have gone wrong when the rocket exploded during a test flight in the Barents Sea. Five people were apparently killed in the accident.
As the Reuters news agency first reported, two US experts came across unusual structures on the Vologda-20 military site while evaluating satellite images from PlanetLabs. The complex is located around 450 kilometers north of Russia’s capital Moscow. The images show, among other things, five underground bunkers and several missile launch pads separated from each other by high walls.
“The facility appears to have been designed for a large, stationary missile system,” said Eveleth, an analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA). “And the only missile system of this type that the Russians are currently working on is Skyfall.” His colleague Jeffery Lewis added that the images indicate “something very unique, very unusual.” “And of course we know that Russia is developing this nuclear-powered missile,” said the nuclear expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies (MIIS).
Neither the Russian Defense Ministry nor the American State Department wanted to comment on the researchers’ findings when asked by Reuters. Hans Kristensen, another military expert from the Association of American Scientists (FAS), was surprised by the images. Normally, nuclear warheads are not stored in the immediate vicinity of launch pads because the risk of an explosion and subsequent chain reaction is too great. However, the unusual structure of the Vologda-20 facility now seems to suggest exactly this.
The fact is that the Russians have been working hard on improving existing cruise missiles and developing new ones, including with help from abroad, not just since the invasion of Ukraine, which violated international law. Just a few days ago, Russia’s autocrat Vladimir Putin also met with the governor of the Vologda region, where the military test site is located. According to information from the regional administration, the meeting was only about the socio-economic development of the region.