Oh Great, Putin Has A Nuclear-Powered, Nuclear-Armed Cruise Missile
Oh Great, Putin Has A Nuclear-Powered, Nuclear-Armed Cruise Missile
The "Flying Chernobyl" that can evade missile defence and fly around the world.
This week has been full of insane headlines. X being banned in Brazil., protests in Israel, yet another horrific school shooting, the Tenet Media indictment and the AI bubble popping in slow motion, just to name a few. But among all of this insanity, there was an utterly terrifying headline that you might have missed. You see, US researchers announced they have located the deployment site of Russia’s 9M730 Burevestnik missile, a nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed cruise missile dubbed the “Flying Chernobyl” that can fly around the entire world, and evade missile defences. I’m sorry, what dystopian, WW3, world-ending, James Bond-esque villainy is this?! Well, truth be told, while this weapon sounds utterly terrifying, it’s actually a bit of a joke. Let me explain.
On paper, the Burevestnik sounds like a super weapon. As it is a cruise missile, not a ballistic missile, it can fly low and fast and change course rapidly. This enables it to avoid radar detection or steer clear of counterstrikes, something ballistic missiles, which fly high and in a predictable path, can’t do. Nuclear-armed cruise missiles are not new technology. The US has had them since the 50s. However, all operational cruise missiles have used rocket or jet propulsion technologies, meaning their range is far shorter than that of a ballistic missile, which can enter a semi-orbital path to reach targets thousands of miles away.
The Burevestnik solves this problem by using an insanely efficient nuclear ramjet propulsion system, giving it the range of a ballistic missile while retaining the stealth and defence penetration characteristics of a cruise missile. These types of jets are remarkably simple. They draw air in and use the missile’s speed to compress the air. It then uses a lightweight miniature nuclear reactor to dramatically heat up this compressed air, significantly increasing its pressure. This extra pressure shoots the air out the back of the jet, pushing the missile forward. As these types of jets are very simple, they work really well at subsonic, transonic and even supersonic speeds. Moreover, as nuclear fuel is mind-bogglingly energy-dense, nuclear ramjets have a practically limitless range. As such, Burevestnik could strike anywhere on the planet or take wide, meandering paths to strike from unexpected and unprotected directions.
But nuclear-powered cruise missiles aren’t a new concept either. The US tried developing them in the late 50s with Project Pluto but scrapped the idea soon after, as they found they simply weren’t that feasible. They found the nuclear ramjets would spread radioactive contamination across their flight path and would turn the nuclear blast into a dirty bomb, which isn’t ideal if you want your troops to enter said area. This is why Burevestnik is dubbed the “Flying Chernobyl”, as it can turn its target into a second Chornobyl, which could be hugely deleterious to surrounding countries, including Russia, and any military stationed nearby, again including Russia’s. As such, Thomas Countryman, a former top State Department official with the Arms Control Association, has said that the Burevestnik missile is “a uniquely stupid weapon system” that “poses more threat to Russia than it does to other countries.”
But, what’s most telling is that Project Pluto found that these types of weapons were perceived as too provocative, even though ICBM’s (Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles) were found to be more effective weapons. You see, even with technology back in the 50s, it was true that the longer a cruise missile is in the air, the more vulnerable it becomes because there is more time to track it and intercept it. As such, in the real world, the additional range of the nuclear ramjets has zero benefits over shorter-range rocket or jet propulsion systems. Particularly with our modern satellite and terrestrial tracking systems. Meanwhile, a larger scatter-bomb ICBM has better defence penetration, can deliver a far larger payload, and doesn’t contaminate your territory or the territory you are attacking/invading. As such, ICBM’s are a significantly more useful weapon and have been for over 60 years.
As such, Western nuclear weapons experts have basically mocked the so-called super weapon, denouncing it as functionally useless and only intended to further propaganda, as it is perceived as far more of a threat to us than it actually is. When you consider how Putin has approached his inane invasion of Ukraine, the narrative is certainly consistent with his uniquely awful style of leadership.
But, truth be told, the Burevestnik is far from a fully-fledged deployable weapon, as it is still in development. In fact, its development is going so poorly that it may never reach active service. It has undergone 13 tests, all of which were failures, apart from two, which were only partial successes. In 2019, a botched recovery of one of these test missiles went catastrophically wrong when the reactor powering the missile exploded, killing five and creating a mini-nuclear disaster in the White Sea.
So, while the realisation that Putin has a nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed cruise missile with near unlimited flight range sounds pant-wettingly terrifying, in reality, it isn’t. Even if such a missile entered the Kremlin’s arsenal, it would be tactically useless, but the chances of this stupid project actually bearing any fruit seem very slim. So, really, the Burevestnik is a rather pathetic and frail attempt to scare us.
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Sources: i News, Reuters, BAS, Bulgarianmilitary.com, NNSS