By Galina Korol | 2025-02-12

KYIV -- The Sarmat missile, which Russian President Vladimir Putin's propagandists have threatened to fire at the United Kingdom and Strasbourg, France, is still not on combat duty.

Failed tests of the RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) -- dubbed "Satan II" by Western media outlets -- indicate that Moscow is encountering a crisis with its strategic weapons, analysts say.

The missile is failing tests, deadlines recede into the rear view mirror, and the lack of critical technology and expertise that Ukraine supplied in Soviet and early post-Soviet times has prompted a crisis in missile building, according to Timothy Wright, a missile analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

"Historically, a lot of the ICBM manufacturing plants and personnel were based in Ukraine," Wright told Business Insider in an article published January 30.

Ukrainian development

One company that played a pivotal role in Russian missile building was Yuzhmash (now Pivdenmash), a Ukrainian state-owned enterprise in Dnipro that makes military and space equipment and technologies for defense, scientific and economic applications.

"Our Yuzhnoye Design Bureau [the Soviet name for Pivdenne Design Bureau] is the alma mater of the Soviet Union's strategic missiles. And this school was built up over decades," Oleg Zhdanov, a Soviet and Ukrainian veteran, military analyst and colonel in the Ukrainian reserves, told Kontur.

It was there that the R-36M2 Voevoda (SS-18 Satan) missile, one of the Sarmat's predecessors, was designed and made.

"This missile, which was developed in Dnipro since the 1970s, launched very fast, was very big, and in addition to a large, powerful warhead, had multiple reentry vehicles," Oleksandr Kochetkov of Kyiv, a nuclear missile specialist, told Kontur.

After the Soviet Union fell, Russia held on to Ukrainian research discoveries, which became the foundation for its nuclear shield.

The aging Satan missiles play a central role in Russia's nuclear strategy, according to open sources.

Soviet planners originally intended the missiles to have a 10-year service life.

However, even though they became outdated long ago, the Russians extended their operating life for many years.

"Yuzhmash and the Yuzhmash Design Bureau provided designers' services, meaning that from time to time, we would go out and check to see how they were functioning and whether they were still 'up to spec,' and we would extend their useful life," Kochetkov said.

Lost opportunities

Now the combat readiness of Russia's strategic forces depends directly on missiles whose intended service life ran out long ago.

This is why in 2010 Russia began working on the Sarmat to replace the Satan, say observers.

"The Sarmat was supposed to be better in terms of many specifications: in the warhead yield, and it was supposed to be more maneuverable. Changing the fuel for this missile was under consideration too," Alexander Kovalenko, an analyst for the website InfoResist, told Kontur.

"And in Russia, that's where the problem lies. They weren't able to make a new high-quality fuel specifically for the Sarmat."

Moreover, the Russians were able to work with Ukrainian specialists up until 2014, when Putin's military attacked eastern Ukraine and annexed Crimea.

"Since 2014 not a single missile that was owned by Russia has been maintained [at Pivdenmash]," Anatoliy Khrapchinskiy, a former officer in the Ukrainian air force and the deputy director of an electronic warfare equipment manufacturing company, told Kontur.

When cooperation with the Ukrainians dissolved, Russia lost critical technology that it was most likely trying to use in creating the Sarmat.

Neither of Russia's two strategic-missile developers -- the Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau and the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology -- has recent experience developing a liquid-fueled ICBM, Wright told Business Insider.

A missile that does not fly

"They built this missile entirely on their own, and it doesn't fly," Kochetkov said. "There were four launches. One was somewhat successful, but the other three failed."

The latest botched test of the RS-28 Sarmat happened on September 21, according to open source analysts.

The missile detonated in the silo, leaving a massive crater and destroying the test site at Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia.

"We know the Russian military and space industry has declined, but no one knows for sure why it's detonating and won't fly," said Kochetkov.

The Russians' setbacks stem primarily from pressure and haste, he said.

"They're pushing the designers and developers. There are political demands to produce faster and faster, but when you do something faster, it doesn't come out well," said Kochetkov.

Zhdanov attributed the test failures to Russia's lack of knowledgeable designers.

"A designer who understands analytical mechanics and drawings can simulate or copy what exists," he said. "Not everyone can come up with something or be creative in terms of engineering developments. That's just not something everyone is cut out for."

Fabian Hoffmann, a missile specialist at the Oslo Nuclear Project, highlighted the same point.

It is "a bit of a question of 'Have they retained the expertise?' because all the people who built their previous missile have retired or are dead," he told Business Insider.

"Some of them are in Ukraine, which had a big part in the Russian ICBM program. So that's a major issue," he added.

Money problems

Russia has "really restricted monetary means" for addressing its missile shortcomings, Hoffmann continued.

Sanctions imposed by the global community, frantic spending on the war in Ukraine to the exclusion of other priorities, and isolation from Western technologies are intensifying the deterioration of Russia's defense industry.

"Because of the sanctions, Russia can't fully develop its missile building," Kovalenko said.

This means that it will be about a decade before the Sarmat can fly, say weapon specialists. And all of Putin's boasting about the allegedly peerless Sarmat amounts to empty rhetoric meant to frighten listeners.