Moscow Announces Effective Test of Atomic-Propelled Burevestnik Weapon

The nation has evaluated the nuclear-powered Burevestnik strategic weapon, according to the country's leading commander.

"We have executed a prolonged flight of a reactor-driven projectile and it traveled a 14,000km distance, which is not the limit," Top Army Official Valery Gerasimov informed President Vladimir Putin in a broadcast conference.

The low-altitude advanced armament, initially revealed in recent years, has been hailed as having a theoretically endless flight path and the capacity to bypass anti-missile technology.

Western experts have previously cast doubt over the weapon's military utility and Russian claims of having accomplished its evaluation.

The president said that a "concluding effective evaluation" of the weapon had been conducted in the previous year, but the claim was not externally confirmed. Of over a dozen recorded evaluations, just two instances had partial success since 2016, as per an non-proliferation organization.

Gen Gerasimov said the weapon was in the sky for fifteen hours during the evaluation on 21 October.

He said the weapon's altitude and course adjustments were assessed and were found to be complying with standards, according to a local reporting service.

"As a result, it exhibited advanced abilities to circumvent defensive networks," the news agency reported the general as saying.

The projectile's application has been the subject of heated controversy in armed forces and security communities since it was first announced in 2018.

A 2021 report by a foreign defence research body determined: "A nuclear-powered cruise missile would provide the nation a singular system with worldwide reach potential."

Yet, as a global defence think tank noted the identical period, the nation faces major obstacles in achieving operational status.

"Its integration into the nation's stockpile arguably hinges not only on surmounting the significant development hurdle of securing the dependable functioning of the atomic power system," experts wrote.

"There occurred multiple unsuccessful trials, and an incident leading to several deaths."

A armed forces periodical cited in the report claims the weapon has a operational radius of between 10,000 and 20,000km, enabling "the missile to be based across the country and still be able to strike targets in the United States mainland."

The same journal also notes the weapon can fly as low as 50 to 100 metres above the earth, rendering it challenging for air defences to engage.

The missile, designated a specific moniker by a foreign security organization, is considered driven by a nuclear reactor, which is intended to commence operation after initial propulsion units have propelled it into the atmosphere.

An investigation by a reporting service the previous year pinpointed a site a considerable distance north of Moscow as the possible firing point of the armament.

Employing orbital photographs from the recent past, an analyst told the agency he had identified multiple firing positions under construction at the site.

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