This was stated by the head of the Roscosmos Corporation, which produces new intercontinental ballistic missiles. However, with the progress of rearmament on them, as well as with their influence on the strategic balance on the planet, far from everything is clear.
The first full-fledged (non-throwing) launch of the Sarmat ICBM took place only on April 20, 2022. Therefore, Dmitry Rogozin's statement that the organization headed by him has already started mass production of missiles indicates a high speed of deployment of a new weapons system. They are made at the Krasnoyarsk Machine—building Plant, with which representatives of the older generation are familiar from the Biryusa refrigerators, and the younger generation from the R-29RMU2 Sineva ICBM.
Extremely high rates of production of new missiles are claimed. The first regiment in Uzhur (Krasnoyarsk Territory) should be on combat duty by the end of this year. At least 48 "Sarmats" should be deployed in the next two years. This indicates the rate of production of more than 24 missiles per year — after all, part of the missiles will be spent on test launches, which will require several more. In Soviet times, the Krasnoyarsk Machine-Building Plant never had the capacity to actually produce more than 20 ICBMs per year. That is, now the production rates here will be much higher — and this is despite the fact that the mass of new missiles is noticeably greater than those that were produced here before. It is not yet clear whether they will be able to withstand them completely.
The new ICBM has a height of 35.5 meters, a diameter of 3.0 meters, a mass of about 210 tons, a combat load of up to 10 tons. Its range is 18 thousand kilometers, which makes it possible to strike from directions that were previously difficult to implement. The new missile will be able to use the mines from the Voevoda ICBM, which it will replace. However, in her case, the mines will be covered by a special missile defense system "Mozyr". It consists of old-barrel installations firing feathered ammunition with a caliber of 14.5 millimeters. During the tests, they destroyed the inert part of the conditional enemy's ICBM, preventing it from hitting the protected mine.
The first test launch of the Sarmat from the Plesetsk cosmodrome / © YouTube
Such mine defense systems for ICBMs seriously change the very nature of a possible war using strategic nuclear forces. "Mozyr" makes the missile-based areas virtually invulnerable: it no longer makes sense for NATO countries to attack the mines with their ICBMs. At the same time, those mines that the United States still has will remain vulnerable to a Russian nuclear strike.
The actual rocket during transportation
Image source: Press Service of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation/TASS
If equipped with conventional nuclear warheads, each Sarmat carries ten of them, with an approximate TNT equivalent of eight megatons. When using hypersonic planning and actively maneuvering Avangard combat units, Sarmat can carry them three at a time. The total TNT equivalent in this case is variable — from 2.4 to 6 megatons. At the same time, the Avangard is practically non-interceptable even for advanced missile defense systems, while conventional nuclear warheads, in theory, can be intercepted by a sufficiently advanced enemy missile defense system (however, no one has such a missile defense system yet).
It is expected that at least 46 new-generation missiles will be deployed in the mine launchers of the Voevoda heavy liquid ICBMs being decommissioned at the compounds in Uzhur and Yasnoye near Orenburg. This will mean a complete replacement of the "Voivode" (Russia has so many of them today), although this year it will obviously not be possible to complete the process completely.
At the same time, it is far from clear whether the sharp increase in the security and capabilities of the Russian nuclear arsenal will have any impact on the position of NATO countries. As far as we can understand, they do not yet have any clear and chronologically close plans to create fundamentally new ICBMs or missile defense systems that can affect the strategic balance of power in the world. There is no clear reaction to the Russian rearmament yet. In a military-technical sense, the direction of development of their strategic nuclear forces remains as poorly predictable as the course of a ship in the open sea — if there is no helmsman left on the ship.
