Satellite imagery captured just days before the summit in Alaska between Trump and Putin appears to show preparations for a nuclear-armed cruise missile test at Russia’s Pankavo test site on the Barents Sea archipelago of Novaya Zemlya.
The Burevestnik is a Russian low-flying, nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed cruise missile whose range, according to the Kremlin, is unlimited. Putin boasted that it was “invincible” and could evade American missile defences when he unveiled it in 2018.
One Western security source confirmed to Reuters that preparations were under way to test the Burevestnik.
Satellite image of equipment at the Pankovo test site in Yuzhny Island, on the Barents Sea archipelago of Novaya Zemlya, Russia (Photo: Planet Labs PBC/Reuters)The Burevestnik was among the “exotic” nuclear-capable weapons unveiled by Putin in a 2018 speech used to “threaten the West with Russia’s nuclear innovations”, Erin D Dumbacher, Stanton Nuclear Security Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said.
“They would probably expect the US and Western intelligence communities as well as open-source researchers to notice their test preparations. They might be looking for a way to remind the US side that Russia is developing a system that could, in theory, evade missile defences.
The remarks were backed by Melanie Garson, Associate Professor in International Security and Conflict Resolution at UCL, who said the test could be “designed to create the perception of threat” and possibly an effort to “push the US to talk arms control” during the summit, deflecting from talking about Ukraine.
Two research institutions based in the US analysed satellite images of the Pankovo site and separately reached the conclusion a missile test was being prepared (Photo: Planet Labs PBC/Reuters)He said the development phase so far “has included a number of failed tests, so it is plausible that Russia would aim to conduct additional trial or trials to assess the maturity of the design and its readiness to be deployed”.
Highlighting that the “development phase so far has included a number of failed tests”, he added: “Russian leadership would also need to consider the consequences of a potential failure of the test, which would weaken the position of Putin.”
The Kremlin said it “no longer considers itself bound” by its “previously adopted self restrictions” under the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF).
The withdrawal came just days after Trump ordered the repositioning of two US nuclear submarines to “the appropriate regions”, without disclosing their precise location. Trump said his order was a response to “highly provocative statements” made by former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, who accused the US of “playing the ultimatum game” by threatening to impose sanctions on Russia if it did not agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine.
Nuclear threat higher than any time since Cuban Missile Crisis
He explained that there was a “general widespread concern in the expert community – not yet reflected in wider civil society or wider public opinion – that nuclear risks are rising”. One of the reasons behind the concern is that “it is a much more complicated nuclear strategic environment now because there are multiple players, whereas in the Cold War, it was very much a bipolar nuclear situation”.
Regarding Russia, Professor Wheeler said it was “engaged in manipulations of nuclear risk in a way that has been profoundly worrying in the context of the Ukraine war”.
Putin at the eastern port city of Magadan on the Sea of Okhotsk, Russia, as he makes his way to Alaska on Friday (Photo: Sputnik/Alexey Nikolsky/Pool via Reuters)Moscow had had mixed success, however, Professor Wheeler said, because while Nato countries did not intervene directly with no-fly zones or ground-based involvement, they still offered Ukraine a significant level of military support, undeterred by Russia’s nuclear threat.
“That seems to have been a critical month, because at that point Russia was starting to experience military losses on the battlefield that were starting to make it look increasingly likely that Ukraine might break through and threaten key strategic Russian positions,” Professor Wheeler said.
“If you took away that success, then the risk might come back.”
He told The i Paper: “The overarching concern that is driving US strategic thinking at the moment, though the Trump administration has not yet set out its nuclear strategy, is the concern that the United States has to face the possibility it could be fighting, potentially in a nuclear situation, Russia and China at the same time. Or that if there is a nuclear crisis with one of them, the other could behave opportunistically to exploit the situation.
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Read More“This problem is known as the two-peer nuclear competitor problem.
“The idea that Russia would accept any kind of inferiority to the United States on the strategic nuclear level is virtually unthinkable. Equally, China will not be comfortable being in a position of inferiority towards the United States either – they will be searching for parity and recognition as a nuclear equal. So this problem poses all sorts of challenges.”
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