SATAN 2. The Russian media and high political circles portray the Satan 2 missile as a nuclear threat to the West. The missile could reach and raze Paris a few seconds according to them but is the threat imminent? We take stock.
[Mis à jour le 6 mai 2022 à 15h04] The Satan 2 missile could reach Paris in 200 seconds and wipe the whole of France off the map. At least that’s what some pro-Kremlin Russians say on television sets. At the end of April, MP Alexei Jouravlev, guest on Rossiya 1 in Russia’s most watched political debate programme, extolled Moscow’s military and nuclear power and one weapon in particular: the RS-28 Sarmat missile, also called “Satan 2”. To emphasize this unique strike force, the elected official and the presenter of the show Olga Skabeïeva imagined the sending of the intercontinental ballistic missile from the enclave of Kaliningrad and to several European capitals including Paris. Supporting infographics, all the guests present applauded the ability of the missile to reach the French capital in 200 seconds but also London with 2 seconds more and Berlin in just 106 seconds. The disastrous scenario with cataclysmic consequences seemed amused on the antenna of Rossiya 1. Pro-Russian propaganda is at work in the media close to the Kremlin and a few days rather the director of the continuous news channel RT, Margarita Simonyan said: “Either we lose in Ukraine or World War III begins. […] And knowing our leader Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, the idea of it all ending in a nuclear attack seems more likely to me than any other scenario.”
Satan 2, already mentioned at the beginning of the war in Ukraine, has appeared as the pride of the Russian army and a nuclear deterrent since April 20, the date of a recent test firing of the missile. Launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in the northwest of the country, the missile hit its targets on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s Far East. “It is truly a unique weapon that will strengthen the military potential of our armed forces, which will ensure the security of Russia against external threats and which will make those who try to threaten our country think twice,” Vladimir Putin said. on Russian television right after the test. What damage could the Satan 2 missile cause? Is the threat imminent? Not quite.
Satan 2, what is this missile?
The Satan 2 missile is renowned for being able to wipe a country the size of France off the map, making it “the most powerful missile with the greatest target range in the world” according to a press release from the Russian Ministry of Defense. If its cylindrical shape does not distinguish it from other missiles, its extraordinary dimensions take care of it: 35 meters long and 3 meters in diameter for 200 tons. According to information, between ten and twelve nuclear heads can be loaded on this mastodon, enough to inflict unparalleled damage. According to Russian information, a single shot of RS-28 Sarmat could reduce an area as large as France or the state of Texas to nothingness and the missile itself could reach its target in just a few minutes, words to take cautiously with Russian propaganda. What makes the power of the Satan 2 missile is also its range, which is still unequaled: 18,000 kilometres. It could hit all points on the globe without exception.
Destructive by its strike force, the Satan 2 would still be “invulnerable” according to Russia. The device full of new military technology has a stealth mode that makes it capable of escaping the vigilance of aerial radars and if however it is spotted, the missile can rely on its modifiable trajectory designed to complicate its destruction by systems anti-aircraft defence.
Can the Satan 2 missile reach Paris in 200 seconds?
If the words of certain Russian politicians and journalists caused concern, they were quickly discredited. The political scientist and specialist of the Russian army and its arsenal, Benjamin Gravisse was one of the first to question the Russian discourse. First, he pointed out that it is impossible to send a Sarmat missile from Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave located between Poland and Lithuania, because “there are no silos of ICBMs [intercontinental ballistic missile]” on the spot. Even assuming that a firing silo adapted to the Satan 2 is present in Kaliningrad, the duration of 200 seconds to reach Paris is “absurd” according to Benjamin Gravisse. “They were content to divide the distance by the speed maximum… in a straight line of an ICBM. It’s c * n and it is not based on anything credible, since an ICBM does not fly in a straight line “unlike cruise missiles, details the specialist with Release. “It takes about six minutes to put the nuclear charges (the independent heads) of an ICBM on a ballistic flight profile before allowing them to begin their descent towards the zone to be struck”, continues the political scientist on the social networks to the blue bird. According to this analysis, the loading of the missile would already take twice the time announced by the Russian media, in fact despite a high cruising speed it would take well over 200 seconds for the Satan 2 missile to fall on Paris. Impossible for the moment to have a precise idea of the time elapsed between the launch and the strike of the RS-28 Sarmat. The test firings provide the first data on this point and they are still in progress.
The Satan 2 missile ready to use?
Russia may brandish the missile as a threat against the West, the Satan 2 is not yet functional. The shots launched on April 20, 2022 are the latest tests to date and this test phase is planned until the end of the year at least. Before this date Moscow cannot claim to be able to use the missile. Satan 2 is therefore not an immediate threat but even deprived of this weapon for some time, Russia has at its disposal all the military and nuclear arsenal necessary to attack Ukraine or more broadly the West. “The Sarmat does not change much. Russia, if it wanted to, could already attack the West or the United States with missiles, from land bases or submarines”, explained Emmanuelle Maitre, specialist in armament with the Foundation for Strategic Research, at the Parisian April 21.
Who owns the Satan 2 missile?
Only Russia has one or more RS-28 Sarmat missiles in its arsenal, so it will enjoy a definite advantage over the other nuclear powers when the missile is operational. Satan 2 is a project that Russia has been working on for several years, already in 2014 Russian Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov described the missile as a “unique weapon” that the United States lacked. “It is a system developed by Russia which replaces other systems. Its development is not linked to the war in Ukraine”, confirmed Emmanuel Maitre still at the Parisian.