Vladimir Putin said that the nuclear-powered cruise missile Burevestnik is „invincible.” But is it really?
Vladimir Putin announced on Sunday the successful testing of the nuclear-powered cruise missile 9M730 Burevestnik (NATO designation: „Skyfall”) – a nuclear-powered cruise missile designed for unlimited range and to evade missile defenses.
Flanked by General Valery Gerasimov, Putin hailed the 14,000-kilometer Arctic flight, recalling that he said back in 2018 that this experimental weapon would be a breakthrough element in American defense.
Putin called the Burevestnik missiles "invincible," but are they really? This question is answered by the American expert Chuck Pfarrer, a former US Navy SEAL platoon commander, in an article published by Kyiv Post.
In reality, he explains, Burevestnik represents a Frankenstein madness: a revival of an apocalyptic concept that the United States abandoned decades ago, considering it dangerous and impractical.
At the core of the missile is the nuclear propulsion with a statoreactor - a fission reactor that heats atmospheric air for propulsion, allowing low-altitude flights at Mach speeds over intercontinental distances.
Putin's missile is a copy of the US Project Pluto, an effort by the US Air Force in the 1950s to develop a low-altitude supersonic missile (SLAM).
To power the SLAM, engineers at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory in California built light reactors capable of supersonic propulsion, obtained using thermonuclear energy.
Problems from the Beginning
The American project faced numerous technical problems. The unshielded design of the missile allowed the release of lethal fission products - cesium-137, iodine-131 - through exhaust clouds, contaminating flight paths and endangering pilots, civilians, and ecosystems.
The instability of the missile exacerbated the dangers: the neutron flux corroded materials, overheating posed a melting risk during flight, and electronic systems malfunctioned in the radiation-soaked fuselage. Rejected as too dangerous, the SLAM project was canceled in 1964, rightfully so.
It was concluded that routine operations of the platform would generate global radioactive fallout, while emerging intercontinental ballistic missile technologies offered safer and more cost-effective alternatives.
Undeterred by historical examples or their own nuclear accidents, Russia revived the concept in the early 2010s - a decision they might regret.
And Yet, the Russians Persist
American intelligence services have recorded at least 13 Russian tests by 2021, with over 80% resulting in catastrophic failures. Putin's "invincible" Burevestnik missiles have exploded on launch rails, scattering fissile materials and reactor fragments, injuring scientists and technicians.
Rediscovering what America learned back in the '50s, the Russians found that the nuclear missiles went out of control and abandoned them after propulsion system failures, their reactors destabilized by imprecise neutron moderation and inefficient fuel. Several Burevestnik missiles, reaching a critical point in their trajectory, veered off controlled flight and crashed into the White Sea, an area of the Barents Sea off the northwest coast of Russia.
All these failures released radiation, dispersing tritium and cesium into the region, polluting air, water, sea ice, and fishing grounds.
Moscow kept secret the data about these ecological disasters, hindering mitigation efforts and amplifying threats to marine ecosystems and indigenous communities.
The Worst Disaster
The largest catastrophe of the Burevestnik program occurred on August 8, 2019, at the Nyonoksa test site in the White Sea. During an attempt to lift a crashed prototype from the seabed, a liquid-fueled booster connected to the nuclear core detonated upon contact with the atmosphere.
The explosion instantly killed five Rosatom technicians, their bodies irreversibly contaminated. Another three perished on their way to Moscow due to acute radiation syndrome. The gruesome symptoms included gastrointestinal bleeding and dermal necrosis. They died from exposure to radiation doses three times higher than the lethal limit. Six other exposed individuals suffered severe radiation sickness, burns, and nausea.
The first responders and Russian doctors, uninformed about the nuclear accident, faced secondary exposure, reporting elevated white blood cell counts and increased cancer risks.
The radioactive fallout of isotopes dispersed - strontium-91, barium-140, and lanthanum-140 - in 2019 led to increased gamma radiation levels in Severodvinsk - 30 kilometers away - to 1.78 microsieverts per hour, a 16-fold increase that persisted for hours and led to the evacuation of 20,000 Russian civilians.
The radioactive cloud traveled 800 km towards Norway, with particles depositing in the White Sea sediments, leading to bans on harvesting crustaceans. Cleanup revealed hundreds of pieces of irradiated debris, endangering exposed individuals and ecosystems for months.
But the harm didn't end there: continuous monitoring shows increased rates of leukemia among the test site personnel and evacuated civilians.
A Rocket That Will Never Be Reliable
Burevestnik is nothing but an apocalyptic theater - a way for an increasingly agitated Putin to rattle the sabers. Clad inappropriately in Russian combat military uniform, the Russian president proclaimed that the October test of his dangerous toy was a success.
Independent verification remains uncertain, but Western analysts believe this is the first - and perhaps only - successful launch of the Burevestnik system.
In a desperate attempt to project power amid increasing defeats on the battlefield and economic isolation, Russia has become dangerously irresponsible, reviving this Frankenstein monster at the cost of human lives, Pfarrer writes.
Experts warn that the unshielded design is impractical. It can never be made fully reliable or safe, and continuous flight tests will lead to widespread radiological contamination, violating nuclear treaties and risking ecological disasters.
Burevestnik is not a strategic asset but a futile and deadly stunt - its flight path itself is a toxic scar on the fragile Arctic environment, where melting ice amplifies the spread of radionuclides into global currents.
Beyond regional consequences, this weapon erodes the fragile architecture of international peace, tempting escalation in an already volatile world and inviting disasters for all nations. Urgent global diplomacy must confront this folly, lest Putin's arrogance shatter the stability that protects humanity, concludes the American expert.
T.D.
