Moscow Confirms Accomplished Trial of Nuclear-Powered Burevestnik Cruise Missile

The nation has evaluated the nuclear-powered Burevestnik long-range missile, as reported by the country's senior general.

"We have launched a prolonged flight of a reactor-driven projectile and it covered a 8,700-mile distance, which is not the limit," Top Army Official the general reported to President Vladimir Putin in a broadcast conference.

The terrain-hugging experimental weapon, first announced in 2018, has been described as having a potentially unlimited range and the capability to evade anti-missile technology.

Foreign specialists have earlier expressed skepticism over the weapon's military utility and Moscow's assertions of having effectively trialed it.

The president said that a "concluding effective evaluation" of the missile had been carried out in last year, but the claim could not be independently verified. Of a minimum of thirteen documented trials, merely a pair had partial success since several years ago, based on an arms control campaign group.

The general stated the projectile was in the sky for 15 hours during the test on October 21.

He said the projectile's ascent and directional control were tested and were found to be up to specification, based on a national news agency.

"As a result, it displayed advanced abilities to evade anti-missile and aerial protection," the outlet reported the general as saying.

The weapon's usefulness has been the focus of intense debate in defence and strategic sectors since it was initially revealed in the past decade.

A previous study by a American military analysis unit stated: "An atomic-propelled strategic weapon would provide the nation a distinctive armament with global strike capacity."

However, as a global defence think tank commented the identical period, Russia encounters significant challenges in making the weapon viable.

"Its induction into the country's arsenal potentially relies not only on overcoming the substantial engineering obstacle of guaranteeing the consistent operation of the reactor drive mechanism," specialists stated.

"There were numerous flight-test failures, and an incident leading to multiple fatalities."

A military journal quoted in the analysis asserts the missile has a flight distance of between 10,000 and 20,000km, enabling "the projectile to be based across the country and still be equipped to reach targets in the United States mainland."

The same journal also notes the weapon can operate as low as 164 to 328 feet above ground, making it difficult for aerial protection systems to intercept.

The missile, code-named an operational name by a foreign security organization, is considered driven by a atomic power source, which is designed to activate after initial propulsion units have launched it into the sky.

An investigation by a media outlet the previous year pinpointed a location 295 miles from the city as the probable deployment area of the armament.

Employing space-based photos from the recent past, an specialist reported to the agency he had observed several deployment sites under construction at the site.

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