Moscow Reports Successful Trial of Nuclear-Powered Burevestnik Cruise Missile

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

"We have executed a multi-hour flight of a nuclear-powered missile and it covered a 14,000km distance, which is not the limit," Top Army Official the general reported to the Russian leader in a broadcast conference.

The terrain-hugging experimental weapon, initially revealed in the past decade, has been hailed as having a possible global reach and the capability to evade defensive systems.

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

The president declared that a "concluding effective evaluation" of the weapon had been carried out in the previous year, but the claim could not be independently verified. Of over a dozen recorded evaluations, only two had limited accomplishment since 2016, according to an arms control campaign group.

Gen Gerasimov said the projectile was in the sky for fifteen hours during the test on the specified date.

He said the weapon's altitude and course adjustments were tested and were found to be up to specification, according to a national news agency.

"Consequently, it displayed advanced abilities to bypass defensive networks," the media source reported the commander as saying.

The weapon's usefulness has been the subject of intense debate in armed forces and security communities since it was originally disclosed in recent years.

A previous study by a American military analysis unit determined: "A reactor-driven long-range projectile would give Russia a distinctive armament with global strike capacity."

Yet, as a global defence think tank commented the identical period, Moscow encounters significant challenges in achieving operational status.

"Its integration into the nation's stockpile arguably hinges not only on surmounting the significant development hurdle of securing the reliable performance of the nuclear-propulsion unit," specialists wrote.

"There have been several flawed evaluations, and a mishap resulting in several deaths."

A armed forces periodical referenced in the analysis asserts the projectile has a flight distance of between 6,200 and 12,400 miles, enabling "the missile to be stationed across the country and still be able to strike objectives in the United States mainland."

The identical publication also says the projectile can fly as low as a very low elevation above the earth, making it difficult for air defences to engage.

The projectile, code-named an operational name by a Western alliance, is considered driven by a nuclear reactor, which is intended to activate after primary launch mechanisms have propelled it into the sky.

An investigation by a news agency the previous year pinpointed a facility a considerable distance north of Moscow as the possible firing point of the missile.

Using space-based photos from the recent past, an expert reported to the outlet he had identified multiple firing positions being built at the facility.

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