When Russian President Vladimir Putin said in the autumn that Russia had tested a new nuclear-powered missile, he described it as a historic breakthrough. The weapon, called Burevestnik, is said to be able to fly for days without being detected.

It is a “strange system”, according to Andrey Baklitsky, who researches weapons of mass destruction.

But what do we actually know about it? And will it serve any purpose?

## What is Burevestnik?

Burevestnik is a cruise missile powered by a nuclear reactor and armed with a nuclear warhead. It is the new weapon that Russia is said to have tested in October in the Arctic Ocean. It is meant to strengthen the country's nuclear triad (land-based missiles, strategic bombers and armed submarines) and to act as a deterrent against the United States or the West at large.

Burevestnik resembles a small aircraft that can fly at low altitude and follows a path that can be changed in flight to avoid obstacles. An important feature is that it can fly very low, at 100 metres above the ground at the lowest, which makes it hard to detect on radar. That lets it evade, for example, American air defence systems, one of the main reasons it was developed.

Because it is powered by a nuclear reactor, it can also stay in the air for several days, or as Putin puts it: it has “unlimited range”.

“It is a unique system that nobody else in the world has,” the Russian president boasted in a video published by the Kremlin in the autumn.

Putin has called the latest test of the missile the “decisive” one. According to him, experts have previously said that creating such a system in the foreseeable future was impossible, and he says the engineers have achieved a “historic accomplishment”.

Putin has also said that it may of course take longer before the weapon can be put into service; Burevestnik must first receive approval from regulators.

Andrey Baklitsky, who researches weapons of mass destruction at the United Nations, says it is still too early to say that Russia has finished building Burevestnik, but that the country has evidently built a prototype that it is actively testing. He adds that it should not be expected to enter service within the next two years.

## What is known about its capabilities?

Actually, not much is known about Burevestnik. It is probably the engine that makes it interesting, rather than the weapon itself. It seems to be powered by a small nuclear reactor through which air flows, Andrey Baklitsky explains.

But there are no details on how it is built; all conclusions rest on general knowledge of how nuclear reactors work and on information that analysts have gathered.

Media have called Burevestnik “a flying Chernobyl”, because earlier analyses have shown that the weapon has left radioactive traces. Baklitsky, however, says this may be a wrong conclusion.

“No elevated radiation levels have been registered in the area, which suggests that the missile does not irradiate the ground it flies over. This could mean it has a closed system or some other method of preventing radioactive release,” Baklitsky tells Omni.

If the missile crashes, it is still unclear how much radiation would be released.

As for the “unlimited range”, Russia reported earlier this year that Burevestnik flew for 15 hours with a range of 14,000 kilometres, and that it had still not reached its maximum limit.

Those claims have been partly confirmed by the head of Norwegian intelligence, Vice Admiral Nils Andreas Stensønes, in an interview with the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet.

“The missile had nuclear propulsion and flew considerably further this time than before,” said Stensønes, who gave no more details than that because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Putin has also claimed that the reactor used in Burevestnik is much smaller than the ones used in submarines and that it can be started in just a few minutes.

“The advantage is that it is comparable to a reactor on a nuclear submarine, but is 1,000 times smaller than the submarine's reactor,” the Russian president said at a meeting with Russian soldiers a few days after the test.

He called it an “outstanding achievement” and stressed that nuclear reactors normally take hours or days to start.

## How can Russia use Burevestnik?

Russia has not yet presented any exact military scenarios for how it envisions the cruise missile being used.

“We must determine what this weapon is, how it should be classified, define possible uses and begin preparing the infrastructure for military deployment,” Putin ordered a Russian military commander at the end of October.

Experts have stressed that Burevestnik is built to be aimed at other great powers and to beat the US air defence systems. The Russian military strategist Alexey Leonkov tells the Kremlin-friendly site Lenta.ru that the missile would destroy everything in its path. For example, by detonating its warhead in the air to knock out the radar systems of an American missile defence and so clear the way for more missiles.

Burevestnik is also highlighted as a weapon for second-strike capability, that is, as a counterattack when most other systems will already have been destroyed. As early as 2019 Leonkov said that Burevestnik's role would be to eliminate the “remains” of the enemy's military bases, factories and power plants in order to send the “aggressor countries back to the Stone Age”, according to Reuters.

## What do experts say?

Many argue that the weapon itself is not groundbreaking and that its practical value is limited; some have asked whether it serves any purpose at all. A second-strike capability would depend on Russia actually being attacked, which “not even the most rabid propagandists in the Kremlin” suggest at present, the Russia expert Mark Galeotti tells the BBC.

In the event of a nuclear war, a nuclear attack on Russian targets would probably also include the military base where the Burevestnik missile is kept.

The researcher Andrey Baklitsky calls Burevestnik a “strange system”.

“There may be some advantage in having such a unique technological solution, but I don't see that the missile has a particularly great strategic value,” he tells Omni.

A cruise missile works roughly like an aircraft and would fly towards the United States at aircraft speed. That increases the opponent's chances of detecting and shooting it down.

There is another drawback, Baklitsky says: cruise missiles are not easy to control.

“It is hard to see the need for Burevestnik in a nuclear conflict, because the war would probably be over before it reaches the US,” he tells Omni.

> “The war would probably be over before it reaches the US.”

Since Russia announced that it had tested Burevestnik, both Putin and Trump have commented on the possibility that nuclear tests could resume.

Baklitsky says this is not surprising: we have entered a “Wild West” era in which almost all disarmament agreements no longer apply.

“More and more new systems and new challenges are coming. All militaries will keep an eye on each other to see what the other side is developing. Every new military capability, especially a nuclear-based one, will be perceived as a threat that demands a response.”