Katerina Schwartz23:52, 09/07/23

3 min.303

The expert told how the Russians modernized the rocket.

The Russian Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile was created on the basis of the Soviet R-36M Voevoda missile, which was developed at the Yuzhnoye design bureau (Dnepr).

“The Russians are trying to keep silent about this as much as possible. The missile of the Voevoda complex underwent a slight modernization, and it was already with the index R36M2… What did they decide to do? I even found confirmation of this. One of the formulations for the modernization of the Voevoda complex was that that it is necessary to get rid of the dependence of the Russian military-industrial complex on the military-industrial complex of Ukraine. It is from our Yuzhmash plant. Indeed, this was the development of Yuzhmash, but from Soviet times,” said military expert Oleg Zhdanov.

At the same time, he told how exactly the Russians modernized the rocket:

“They first started with the engine, began to strengthen it, enlarge it, modernize it. Then they began weighing this missile… they began to try to install on it means of penetrating the missile defense system. They replaced some of the warheads. They made the ratio of combat and decoy targets in favor of decoys in order to confuse the enemy’s missile defense system… Judging by what they put on this rocket, what they attached, the weight has increased, it doesn’t even fly.”

According to Zhdanov, there were only three tests of Sarmat missiles, two of them were unsuccessful, one was partially successful: “The missile was able to get off the ground and confirmed the fact that it can take off.”

As the expert noted, the Russians suddenly adopted the missile into service, but there is no data on its mass production. He is sure that today this missile does not pose a threat:

“It’s hard to say what they put on combat duty. If a missile doesn’t fly during test launches, how can it be on combat duty?”

(C)UNIAN 2023