Moscow Reports Successful Trial of Reactor-Driven Burevestnik Weapon

Moscow has trialed the reactor-driven Burevestnik strategic weapon, as reported by the nation's senior general.

"We have executed a prolonged flight of a nuclear-powered missile and it traveled a vast distance, which is not the maximum," Top Army Official Valery Gerasimov told President Vladimir Putin in a televised meeting.

The terrain-hugging advanced armament, first announced in recent years, has been described as having a theoretically endless flight path and the ability to bypass missile defences.

Foreign specialists have previously cast doubt over the missile's strategic value and Moscow's assertions of having successfully tested it.

The president said that a "last accomplished trial" of the armament had been carried out in last year, but the assertion could not be independently verified. Of over a dozen recorded evaluations, just two instances had partial success since 2016, as per an disarmament advocacy body.

The military leader said the projectile was in the air for a significant duration during the trial on the specified date.

He said the weapon's altitude and course adjustments were assessed and were confirmed as complying with standards, as per a national news agency.

"As a result, it exhibited high capabilities to bypass missile and air defence systems," the news agency quoted the general as saying.

The missile's utility has been the focus of vigorous discussion in military and defence circles since it was first announced in 2018.

A previous study by a US Air Force intelligence center stated: "A nuclear-powered cruise missile would give Russia a unique weapon with worldwide reach potential."

Nonetheless, as an international strategic institute observed the identical period, Moscow encounters significant challenges in developing a functional system.

"Its integration into the country's arsenal likely depends not only on resolving the significant development hurdle of ensuring the dependable functioning of the nuclear-propulsion unit," experts stated.

"There were several flawed evaluations, and a mishap resulting in multiple fatalities."

A defence publication cited in the analysis claims the weapon has a flight distance of between 6,200 and 12,400 miles, permitting "the missile to be deployed throughout the nation and still be equipped to strike goals in the American territory."

The same journal also says the missile can travel as low as 164 to 328 feet above ground, rendering it challenging for air defences to engage.

The missile, code-named Skyfall by an international defence pact, is thought to be powered by a atomic power source, which is supposed to commence operation after initial propulsion units have propelled it into the air.

An examination by a media outlet the previous year located a location 295 miles north of Moscow as the likely launch site of the missile.

Using satellite imagery from last summer, an specialist told the agency he had detected several deployment sites under construction at the site.

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