Putin claims test of new nuclear cruise missile

Russia tested a new nuclear-capable, nuclear-powered cruise missile designed to confound existing defenses, inching closer to deploying it to its military, President Vladimir Putin said in remarks released Sunday.

- ASSOCIATED PRESS

Russian Presidential Press Office

AN IMAGE from video released by Russia on Sunday shows President Vladimir Putin at a command post.

The announcement, which followed years of tests of the Burevestnik missile, comes as part of nuclear messaging from the Kremlin, which has resisted Western pressure for a ceasefire in Ukraine and strongly warned the U.S. and other NATO allies against sanctioning strikes deep inside Russia with longer-range Western weapons such as the U.S .- made Tomahawk.

A video released by the Kremlin showed Putin, dressed in camouflage fatigues, receiving a report from Gen. Valery Gerasimov, Russia's chief of general staff, who told the Russian leader that the Burevestnik covered 8,700 miles in a key test Tuesday.

Gerasimov said the Burevestnik - "storm petrel" in Russian - spent 15 hours in the air on nuclear power, adding, "That's not the limit."

Mysterious history

Little is known about the Burevestnik, which was code-named Skyfall by NATO, and many Western experts have been skeptical about it, noting that a nuclear engine could be highly unreliable.

When Putin first revealed that Russia was working on the weapon in his 2018 state of the nation address, he said it would have an unlimited range, allowing it to circle the globe undetected by missile defense systems.