Published: 5:15pm, 26 Oct 2025Updated: 5:18pm, 26 Oct 2025
Russia has successfully tested its nuclear-powered Burevestnik cruise missile, a nuclear-capable weapon Moscow says can evade any defence system, and will move towards deploying the weapon, President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday.
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Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov, chief of the general staff of Russia’s armed forces, told Putin that the missile travelled 14,000 km (8,700 miles) and was in the air for about 15 hours when it was tested on October 21.
Russia says the 9M730 Burevestnik (Storm Petrel) – dubbed the SSC-X-9 Skyfall by Nato – is “invincible” to current and future missile defences, with an almost unlimited range and unpredictable flight path.
“It is a unique ware which nobody else in the world has,” Putin, dressed in camouflage fatigues at a command point meeting with generals overseeing the war in Ukraine, said in remarks released by the Kremlin on Sunday.
Putin said that he had once been told by some Russian specialists that the weapon was unlikely to ever be possible, but now, he said, its “crucial testing” had been concluded.
He told Gerasimov that Russia needed to understand how to classify the weapon and prepare infrastructure for deploying the Burevestnik.