Russia will further strengthen its armed forces, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday (June 21), Reuters reports.
"We will continue to develop and strengthen our armed forces, considering the potential military threats and risks," Putin said in a televised speech.
He added that Russia's newly-tested Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), capable of carrying 10 or more nuclear warheads and decoys, would enter service by the end of the year.
"The Sarmat heavy intercontinental ballistic missile was successfully test-launched. The first such ICBM system is set to go on combat alert already at the end of this year," the Russian leader said at a meeting with graduates of higher military educational institutions, TASS reports.
In addition to the new weapons tested on the battlefield, the Russian troops have begun to receive S-500 state-of-the-art anti-aircraft and anti-ballistic missile defense systems that have no rivals in the world, Putin stressed.
Russia successfully test-launched its Sarmat ICBM for the first time from the Plesetsk spaceport in the Arkhangelsk Region in the country’s north on April 20. The launch confirmed all the ICBM’s designed characteristics at all the stages of its flight. Currently, the Uzhur missile formation in the Krasnoyarsk Region is preparing to arm its forward regiment with the state-of-the-art Sarmat ICBMs.
The Sarmat ICBM was developed at the Makeyev State Rocket Center (part of Roscosmos) and is manufactured at the Krasmash enterprise. In experts’ estimates, the RS-28 Sarmat is capable of delivering a MIRVed warhead weighing up to 10 tonnes to any location worldwide both over the North and South Poles.
