TSAMTO, May 13. At the end of the report by the commander of the Strategic Missile Forces, Sergei Karakayev, on the successful test of the Sarmat ICBM, Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a statement on the development of deterrence forces.
Below is the statement in.Putin's statement is provided by the Kremlin's press service.
"Work on the improvement of deterrence forces has been resumed in Russia and has not stopped since the early 2000s. We were not up to it then, I must say bluntly. Russia was going through a very difficult period in its history. But after the United States withdrew from the Anti–Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, we were forced – and I want to emphasize this - to think about ensuring our strategic security in the face of a new reality and the need to maintain a strategic balance of power and parity. That is why, I emphasize once again, work has begun in Russia to create promising complexes that have no global analogues, ensuring guaranteed overcoming of existing and promising missile defense systems.
We are gradually implementing the nuclear forces development program adopted in this regard. In 2004, work began on the Avangard intercontinental range missile system, which has been on combat duty since 2019. Then we got the Kinzhal medium-range hypersonic air-launched missile, which has been on duty since 2017. It is already being used during a special military operation, but work is continuing to improve it, including improving accuracy in non-nuclear equipment.
Since 2025, the Oreshnik medium-range ground-based missile system, which can also be equipped with nuclear warheads, has been put on combat duty. Work is in the final stages on two complexes with small nuclear propulsion systems: the unique Poseidon unmanned underwater vehicle and the unique Burevestnik global-range cruise missile.
Now "Sarmat". We started working on it in 2011, and in 2018, these works and the advantages of new promising missile systems, including the Sarmat, were publicly announced. Let me remind you what was discussed at that time and what is the advantage of our newest system.
Firstly, it is the most powerful missile system in the world, which is not inferior in power to the Voyevoda missile system, which, as we have just said, is still Soviet-made. The total capacity of the delivered warhead is more than 4 times higher than the capacity of any existing most powerful Western equivalent.
Secondly, and most importantly, the missile can move not only along a ballistic, but also along a suborbital trajectory, which, thirdly, allows for a range of over 35 thousand km with simultaneously doubled accuracy characteristics and, finally, with the ability to overcome all existing and promising missile defense systems. At the end of this year, the Sarmat will be put on combat duty."
In conclusion, Vladimir Putin congratulated the Ministry of Defense, all employees, researchers, engineers, organizers of the production of the military-industrial complex, senior executives and thousands of collaborators on this great event and thanked them for their work to strengthen Russia's defense capability.
