Weapons

SS-30 ?? / RS-28 / 15A28 Sarmat New Heavy ICBM

The Russian military plans to put Sarmat in service in late 2018 and complete replacing older variants of Satan by 2020. Tests of the new Russian ICBM RS-28 Sarmat, which is meant to replace the outgoing heavy silo-based Soviet R-36M missiles, dubbed “Satan” by NATO, are likely to begin in summer of 2016. The RS-28 has been in development since 2009 and is scheduled to start replacing the old ICBMs in 2018.

The new missile, weighing at least 100 tons, will reportedly be capable of carrying a payload of up to 10 tons on any trajectory. This means an attack on a target could be made from any direction, i.e. RS-28 could start from Russia and fly in the direction of Antarctica, make a circumterrestrial flight and hit targets on the other side of the planet from an unexpected direction.

In 2011, the Russian military announced plans to build a new missile [Russian and Western designations SS-X-?? is unknown pending flight testing by the period of 2016-2018] to replace the Voyevoda, (Governor) (SS-18, Satan) ICBM, which had been in service since 1967.