The failed launch of Russia’s newest “no analogue” inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) – the RS-28 “Sarmat,” or “Satan II” as it’s known in the West – did not go unnoticed. In the Orenburg sky everything was visible, even to non-professionals, as maroon clouds of toxic fumes marked the sudden end of a launch that was supposed to demonstrate strength. Behind the clouds lies a deeper story: the loss of competencies, system failures, and the collapse of illusions about technological superiority.

Judging from the maroon clouds from one of the rocket fuel components — nitrogen tetroxide (N₂O₄), known in professional circles as amyl – immediately after launch, there appears to have been an emergency shutdown of the engines due to abnormal operation of one of the rocket’s systems. According to available information, the block of acceleration sensors along the rocket’s axes failed. In such cases, the launch is considered an emergency, the engines shut down, and the rocket ceases flight. The first small cloud of amyl fumes corresponds to the point when the engines were shut down; the second, located higher, to the place where, due to overload caused by the sharp change in the rocket’s flight direction, the oxidizer tank depressurized. This tank is larger in volume than the fuel tank and, possibly for that reason, has less resistance to overloads.

Doubts Cloud Sarmat Testing Record

The 13th missile division of Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces is located in Yasny, Orenburg region, and is part of the 31st missile army of the Strategic Rocket Forces of Russia. This is one of 11 sites from which intercontinental ballistic missile launches can be carried out from Russian territory.

Recent RS-28 Sarmat test launches include:

  • April 20, 2022 (Plesetsk, Arkhangelsk region) — successful launch, the missile reached the Kura test site (Kamchatka).
  • Summer–autumn 2022 (Plesetsk, Arkhangelsk region) — failed launch, not officially disclosed, accident according to indirect data.
  • Spring 2023 (Plesetsk, Arkhangelsk region) — failed launch, no confirmations, but mentioned in analysis.
  • September 1, 2023 (Plesetsk, Arkhangelsk region) — successful launch. Notably, afterward it was not Putin, who likes to announce successes, but the head of Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov, who made the official statement about Sarmat being placed on combat duty.
  • Spring 2024 (Plesetsk, Arkhangelsk region) — failed launch, according to Western sources.
  • September 2024, Plesetsk (Arkhangelsk region) — failed launch. The missile was destroyed at launch, leaving a crater about 60 meters in diameter.
  • November 28, 2025, (Yasny, Orenburg region) — failed launch. The missile lost stability, caught fire, and disintegrated in the air.

The list illustrates a patchy test record for the RS-28 Sarmat. But after just two failed and two successful launches, the RS-28 was apparently accepted into service. Yet the announcement was very much in the spirit of Putin’s fluid propaganda — at times, the missile was depicted as already being in service, then later, it was described as being on the brink of acceptance:

  • March 1, 2018 — In an address to the Federal Assembly, Putin publicly presents Sarmat for the first time and declares it would “soon enter service.”
  • April 20, 2022 — After the first successful test launch at the Plesetsk cosmodrome, Putin states that Sarmat would enter combat duty at the end of 2022.
  • September 1, 2023 — Roscosmos head Yuri Borisov announces that Sarmat has been placed on combat duty”; Putin also speaks of the complex’s readiness.
  • October 29, 2025 — Meeting with wounded soldiers at the Central Military Clinical Hospital in Moscow, Putin admits that Sarmat has not yet been deployed, but “soon will be.”
  • October 30, 2025 — In the same series of meetings, Putin repeats: “… it is not yet on duty — it will appear soon.”
  • November 4, 2025 — At an award ceremony in the Kremlin, Putin declares that “this year we will put it on trial combat duty; next year, full combat duty.”
  • November 5, 2025 — Foreign media quotes Putin saying: “this year intercontinental ballistic missiles Sarmat will be put on trial combat duty,” with full deployment postponed to the following year.

Strategic or Propaganda Value?

The Russian government even composed a song in militaristic style about the ICBM, trumpeting that “from Mother Russia, Sarmat gazes afar at the United States,” which is repeatedly broadcast on state TV channels. In this context, the opinion of the main listener for whom this song was created — the current president of the United States — is of particular interest.

This suggests that this missile model is primarily an instrument of demonstrating Russia’s “power and indestructibility,” while its main function — delivering a strike on enemy territory — is secondary, on the principle that “maybe it will hit somewhere.” The incredibly low percentage of officially successful launches (14%) and the absence of official video confirmations suggest that the Sarmat missile is not a combat ready product at all.

The video of the latest failed Sarmat launch was filmed by local residents, and only thanks to this can we glean a degree of combat “readiness.” I remind you — the Sarmat was accepted into service with only 50% successful launches. This is nonsense. In global practice, intercontinental ballistic missiles are typically accepted into service after reaching a test launch success rate of 80–90%. Strategic weapons in particular must uphold a high standard of reliability: each missile must be expected to perform its task, otherwise the system loses meaning. Some historical examples include:

  • R 36M (“Satan,” predecessor of “Sarmat”): in 1973–1976, 43 launches were conducted, of which seven failed. Success rate was about 84%, after which the weapon was accepted into service.
  • US Minuteman ICBMs: the test program included dozens of launches, and only after achieving stable success above 90% was it placed on combat duty.
  • Modern systems (Trident II D5): more than 150 test launches exceeding 95%, considered the benchmark of reliability.

The Ukrainian Connection

The R 36M “Satan” that is currently in service was developed, produced, and maintained by specialists of Yuzhmash (Southern Machine Building Plant), located in the city of Dnipro (formerly Dnipropetrivsk). Chief designer, Ukrainian Mikhail Kuzmich Yangel, led development in 1969–1971, and Vladimir Fedorovich Utkin headed the project from 1971, ushering in serial production.

A brief overview of the R 36M’s development cycle:

  • Start of work: decree of the USSR Council of Ministers of September 2, 1969.
  • Tests of the first modification (15A14): February 21, 1973 — October 1, 1975.
  • Acceptance into service: December 30, 1975.
  • In service R 36M UTTKh (15A18) from September 18, 1980.
  • In service R 36M2 “Voevoda” (15A18M) from August 11, 1988.
  • Operated: R 36M (1975–1982), R 36M UTTKh (1980–2009), R 36M2 “Voevoda” (from 1988 to the present).

Thus, rockets developed and produced, and later maintained by Ukrainian engineers, successfully passed tests, were and remain in service.

But there is a nuance — the expired warranty period, which was originally 10–15 years. Thanks to regular inspections and modernization, operational lifespans were repeatedly extended: the basic R 36M (15A14) served until the early 1980s, R 36M UTTKh (15A18) remained in service until 2009, and R 36M2 “Voevoda” (15A18M), accepted into service in 1988, is still in operation today, with extended service life more than twice the original warranty (up to 23–30 years). As Strategic Rocket Forces commander Sergey Karakayev noted in December 2010, the service life of RS 20V (Voevoda) reached 23 years, and precisely for this reason it was decided to extend its presence in service until 2026.

However, following the occupation of Crimea and parts of the Ukrainian Donbas, such inspection and warranty work on these missiles was stopped. Formally, the process ended later: the intergovernmental agreement between Ukraine and Russia of February 2006, regulating the extension of the service life of the 15P118M (Voevoda) was terminated by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine on January 6, 2023. This document ensured the participation of Ukrainian engineers in maintenance and extension of missile service life, and its termination meant Ukraine’s final refusal in any work to support their operation.

The Best Laid Plans

This all brings us to one very interesting observation. On the eve of another fiasco involving the “no analogue” missile, which, according to Putin, “cannot be intercepted by any air defense in the world,” Russia’s leader, speaking on November 27, 2025 at the CSTO summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, in addition to statements detached from reality about the capture of a nonexistent city of Komsolmolsk in the combat zone, issued an ultimatum: “Hostilities in Ukraine will cease when Ukrainian troops leave Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions. There are no other conditions for ending the conflict. If Kyiv does not do this voluntarily, Russia will achieve it by military means.”

The failed Sarmat launch had one very important subtext — a demonstrative response to the United States for their flawless tests of the solid-fuel missile “Minuteman III” within the framework of test GT-254, conducted on November 5, 2025 from Vandenberg Base in California. The route of the missile, not equipped with a warhead, was about 4,200 miles and it reached the test site at Kwajalein Atoll (Marshall Islands). Putin had hoped to stand on equal footing with the United States and exploit the propaganda dividends of a successful Sarmat test. However, what could not fail to happen did happen, and the whole farce was subsequently swept under the carpet.

Had the Samart launch at least disappeared into the clouds and crashed in the Orenburg steppes, far from the eyes and phone cameras of nearby observers, the whole world would have heard of “another successful test of the Sarmat missile, whose warhead ‘hit exactly the designated area’ of the Kura test site in Kamchatka.”

Confusion over what happened vividly demonstrates the fact that even at the level of official Kremlin messaging organs, there was no readiness to provide a clear explanation. On November 28, 2025, Peskov told journalists at a briefing that the Kremlin had no confirmed information about the alleged explosion of a ballistic missile at a military base in the Orenburg region, stressing that no official data on the incident had been received and all reports required verification. Already on November 29 he denied the reports that appeared in Telegram channels along with photographs of the alleged crash site.

In this context it becomes obvious that Putin, realizing that Russia never had competence in creating combat ready ballistic missiles, and now has also lost the production base for their creation, is trying – besides territorial goals and seizing natural and human resources for future wars – to solve the issue with “brains” capable of creating nuclear weapons of intercontinental range.

That is why Sarmat remains a trump card that Putin cannot pull from his sleeve — not because he is saving it for a decisive moment, but because the “no analogue” project has never approached the status of a combat ready weapon.