Russia’s "Flying Chernobyl" missile heralds new nuke arms race Analysis by Asia Times

Asia Times has published an article claiming that the Burvestnik nuclear-powered superweapon’s successful test is Russia’s apparent answer to the US’s new nuclear-tipped AGM-181A. Caliber.Az reprints the article.

Russia has just tested a new nuclear-powered cruise missile, officially known as Burvestnik and referred to in reports as “Flying Chernobyl”, a doomsday superweapon spurred by Moscow’s concern of losing nuclear parity vis-a-vis the US and whose launch potentially heralds the start of a new nuclear arms race.

This month, The Warzone reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the successful test at the annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club. At the event, he also claimed that Russia is close to fielding its newest nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), known as the RS-28 Sarmat, adding to speculation of a new arms race.

The Warzone report says that Burevestnik, first unveiled by Putin in March 2018, has since been tested at several sites, including Pankovo in the Arctic Ocean. Russia’s Ministry of Defense has said the Burevestnik is a nuclear-armed, nuclear-powered strategic missile with unlimited range, with a nuclear thermal rocket or ramjet engine as its primary propulsion method.

The Warzone notes that safety concerns surrounding the missile include its release of radioactive material and the fate of its nuclear power source after detonation, hence the “Flying Chernobyl” moniker.

In August 2019, Russia’s Rosatom nuclear energy agency confirmed a radioactivity release that killed five weapons scientists at the State Central Navy Testing Range at Nyonoksa in northern Russia that was later linked to an accident involving the test of an “isotope power source for a liquid-fuelled rocket engine.”

Nonproliferation expert Jeffrey Lewis and Federation of American Scientists fellow Ankit Panda suspected the incident resulted from a test of the Burevestnik, though others have contested that assessment.

Putin has recently suggested that Russia, the US and China may soon resume live nuclear weapon testing and has rejected adopting a new official nuclear weapon doctrine with a lower threshold for potential employment. Despite that, the Warzone says that the Burevestnik program’s progress and the missile’s eventual deployment remain uncertain.

In an April 2020 article in the peer-reviewed Journal of Science Policy and Governance, Leah Walker asserts that the Burevestnik’s development was spurred on by Russian fears of US missile defence dating back to the Soviet Union and former US president Ronald Reagan’s embrace of the Strategic Defense Initiative.

Walker also says that more recent US projects, such as Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS), have also rung nuclear alarm bells in Moscow. Moreover, recent confirmed progress on America’s prototype nuclear-tipped AGM-181A Long Range Stand Off (LRSO) cruise missile may have compelled Russia to expedite Burevestnik-related testing.

This month, Asia Times reported on US tests of the AGM-181A LRSO to bolster its air-based nuclear deterrent against emerging threats from China and Russia. The AGM-181A LRSO, part of the Long Range Strike family, has undergone nine successful major flight tests, demonstrating its high survivability with a stealthy airframe.

The US missile has also reportedly undergone four powered-flight tests, including a Controlled Test Mission (CTM-1) test. The AGM-181A LRSO may be crucial for the US to fill a perceived nuclear deterrence gap resulting from the downsizing of its nuclear arsenal after the previous Cold War.

At the same time, near-peer adversaries China and Russia have continued to develop tactical nuclear weapons. The development of the AGM-181A LRSO may spark a proportionate nuclear response from China and Russia, potentially entailing strategic-level cooperation to increase their respective nuclear arsenals and thus sparking a renewed nuclear arms race with the US.

During the Cold War, the US and Soviet Union investigated prototype nuclear-powered ramjets for use in long-range missiles and strategic bombers to increase the strike range of their airpower. Longer ranges required more fuel, which in turn required bigger aircraft. Nuclear-powered ramjets, however, were seen as an alternative to designing bigger aircraft.

Mechanically, they work by bringing in cold air from the front, passing it over a nuclear reactor to heat it and expelling it to provide thrust. Such an engine could power an aircraft or missile for days or even weeks.

While the US and the former Soviet Union developed nuclear-powered aircraft and missile designs, none were operationalized due to technical, safety and operational problems.

Leah notes that Burevestnik’s design is similar to the 1960s US Supersonic Low Altitude Missile (SLAM) developed under the top-secret Project Pluto, which aimed to develop a nuclear-powered cruise missile.

She notes that SLAM, which can carry 14 to 26 nuclear warheads, would have been used in the worst-case nuclear war scenario. Leah mentions that the US tested a functioning nuclear ramjet engine in 1961, but the risks of placing it on a missile and other associated dangers led the US to shut down the program.

Leah notes several challenges in building such a weapon. She mentions that a compact nuclear reactor that can withstand the stresses of a cruise missile has to contend with extreme variations in pressure over the body of the reactor, extremely high temperatures needed for the nuclear reaction and rapid heat loss due to air stream cooling.

She notes that Project Pluto sought to fulfil these requirements by designing and building a 500-megawatt nuclear reactor that could withstand heat of over 1,371 degrees Celsius.

Leah says there is no way to mitigate operational accidents in a complex, tightly coupled, small-scale system. However, she also mentions that despite the system being accident-prone, any malfunction would most likely not be seen as a problem as long as it occurred on enemy territory, as its failure could be as devastating to the enemy as its success.

Leah also says there is an implicit peril in running a delivery system that works as a dirty bomb and thus raises nuclear proliferation concerns. She mentions that if other countries pursue these weapons to maintain nuclear parity with peers, it would be severely consequential for the world’s population and environment.

She notes that if testing just one such weapon causes enough damage, and if a reactor on a missile explodes, a missile test would quickly have the ramifications of a nuclear test.

The Burevestnik is part of Russia’s “superweapon” family, touted to bring mutually assured destruction (MAD) to its adversaries, designed to be impossible to intercept and meant ultimately to showcase and highlight Russia’s technological and military might.

In a September 2021 study for Chatham House, Richard Conolly notes that the Burevestnik, alongside the RS-28 Sarmat ICBM, Avangard, Kinzhal and Tsirkon hypersonic missiles, and Poseidon nuclear torpedo, were developed to maintain strategic parity with the US, penetrate US missile defences and act as leverage in future arms control negotiations.

Conolly notes that Russia developed these superweapons in response to fears of a sudden and decisive US naval and air blitzkrieg, with their joint capability to mount conventional or nuclear warheads giving Moscow a broader range of retaliation options.

At the same time, Conolly says that the superweapons do not significantly change Russia’s strategic nuclear capability, although they vastly improve its tactical nuclear and conventional strike capabilities.

Russia’s conventional military capabilities, which have been battered in Ukraine, may take 15 to 20 years to rebuild, according to some estimates. With sanctions eating away at its economy and defence industry, Russia may be forced to rely more on asymmetric methods in its ongoing confrontation with the West.

Such asymmetric methods may include disinformation, cyberattacks, and lowering the threshold for using tactical nuclear weapons such as the Burevestnik.