- Advanced Missile Capabilities: The RS-28 Sarmat (SS-X-30 Satan 2) has an 18,000 km range, carries up to 15 MIRVs, and can strike global targets with hypersonic speed, precision, and advanced countermeasures.
- Strategic Importance: A core element of Russia’s nuclear triad, the Sarmat enhances deterrence by bypassing radar networks and missile defences with unconventional flight paths.
- Destructive Potential: A single warhead could cause immense destruction, killing 412,000 and injuring millions in a densely populated city.
- Challenges in Defense: Its hypersonic speed, decoys, and countermeasures render current missile defence systems inadequate, necessitating advancements in interception technology.
NATO has designated the Russian super-heavy liquid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) RS-28 Sarmat (SS-X-30 Satan 2) as the replacement for the R-36M2 Voyevoda (SS-18 Satan). The 2016 launch of the RS-28 Sarmat, a key component of Russia’s nuclear deterrence strategy, marked a significant advancement in missile technology.
RS-28 Sarmat Missile: An Overview
The RS-28 Sarmat, also known as the SS-X-30 Satan 2 by NATO, is a Russian super-heavy liquid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) designed to replace the older R-36M2 Voyevoda (SS-18 Satan). Unveiled in 2016, the RS-28 Sarmat signifies a major leap in missile technology and plays a central role in Russia’s nuclear deterrence strategy.
The Sarmat is capable of carrying up to 10 heavy warheads or 15 lighter warheads, each utilizing multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs), enabling the missile to strike several targets simultaneously with remarkable precision. With a range exceeding 18,000 kilometres, it can strike any location on Earth, including North America, Europe, and Asia. Its hypersonic speeds, coupled with advanced countermeasures, making it challenging to intercept by existing missile defence systems. Additionally, the missile uses liquid fuel, offering greater flexibility in adjusting thrust and payload capacity compared to solid-fuel ICBMs.
The Sarmat is silo-based, with enhanced fortifications to withstand preemptive strikes. As a critical component of Russia’s nuclear triad, the RS-28 Sarmat strengthens strategic deterrence by bypassing advanced missile defence systems through its speed, manoeuvrability, and countermeasures. Furthermore, its ability to strike from unconventional paths, such as over the South Pole, allows it to evade traditional radar networks, enhancing its strategic versatility.
Strategic Worth
Together with strategic bombers and SLBMs, the RS-28 Sarmat is a vital part of Russia’s nuclear triad. Because of its speed, agility, and countermeasures, it avoids sophisticated missile defence systems, increasing deterrence in the following ways:
- Its strategic adaptability includes the ability to attack from unconventional angles, including over the South Pole, which bypasses traditional radar systems.
Analysis of Impact and Attack Simulation Scenarios
By simulating several strike scenarios, the RS-28 Sarmat missile exhibits its unmatched destructive potential:
- Counterforce Strike: Targets enemy military and nuclear facilities, including American command centres and missile silos. It cuts trip time by using Arctic air patterns. Advanced countermeasures and decoys used by MIRVs guarantee numerous hits while evading defence systems.
- Decapitation Strike: Disrupts command systems by neutralizing leadership centres in Asia or Europe. It delivers hypersonic weapons to vital targets by avoiding radar and using unusual flight paths, including over the South Pole.
- Non-Nuclear Demonstrative Strike: Targets unpopulated areas to showcase accuracy and conventional strike capacity while demonstrating military might without intensifying hostilities.
- Large-Scale Retaliation: Targets infrastructure and cities on other continents in response to nuclear aggression. The possibility of mutually assured destruction (MAD) is increased when MIRVs are deployed, guaranteeing enormous destruction.
Modeled Impact of a Single Warhead on a Congested City
A single one-megaton nuclear warhead is estimated to cause devastating consequences in a city like Washington, D.C.:
- Fireball Zone (0.28 km radius): Approximately 2,750 people would be completely vaporized.
- Severe Blast Zone (1.2 km radius): Buildings would be obliterated, resulting in around 39,600 fatalities.
- Moderate Blast Zone (3 km radius): Widespread destruction would lead to the deaths of about 154,000 individuals.
- Thermal Radiation Zone (5 km radius): Fires and severe burns could claim the lives of over 215,900 people.
In total, a single warhead could kill an estimated 412,000 people and injure countless others. If multiple cities were targeted with all ten MIRVs, the destruction could encompass 785 square kilometres, with roughly 4 million deaths and 8 million injuries.
Difficulties in Interception
- Hypersonic Speed limits defence response times, making it difficult to intercept the Sarmat.
- Decoys and MIRVs overwhelm interception systems.
- Non-standard trajectories avoid radar detection.
- Electronic Warfare Systems spoof or jam radar.
The usefulness of current defence technologies like GMD, Aegis BMD, and THAAD against MIRVs and hypersonic threats is limited.
Prospective Solutions:
- There are substantial financial and technical obstacles in the development of Directed Energy Weapons (DEWs), Space-Based Interceptors, and Hypersonic Interceptors.
Conclusion
The RS-28 Sarmat is a key component of strategic deterrence because of its unparalleled speed, range, and payload capacity. Its catastrophic potential, however, emphasizes the urgency for new defensive technologies, international arms control, and global nuclear disarmament initiatives.
Aayush Pal is a freelance writer on contemporary geopolitical developments. Piyush Anand is a Biotechnology Engineering student at Chandigarh University. Views expressed are the author’s own.
Piyush Anand 
Balaji Subramanian 
Prajwal K M