It sounds ominous.
A smart missile that can stay in the sky for days. It can hide among the hilltops and glide between continents before unleashing its nuclear warhead with pinpoint precision.
That’s what Russian President Vladimir Putin believes his “superweapon”, the 9M730 Burevestnik (Storm Petrel) cruise missile, can do.
Its secret ingredient? A nuclear-powered engine.
After a string of deadly failures, Moscow claims it successfully test-fired a Burevestnik from a Novaya Zemlya military base deep inside the Arctic Circle at the weekend.
And Putin’s bursting with pride.
“I remember vividly when we announced that we were developing such a weapon, even highly qualified specialists told me that, yes, it was a good and worthy goal, but unrealizable in the near future,” the Russian President said Saturday.
On 21 October 2025 Russia conducted "the key test" of the Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile (also referred to as SSC-X-9 Skyfall). The test is reported to be successful. The missile travelled 14,000 km in a 15-hour flight (Image: Pan'kovo test site). Links follow 1/
— Pavel Podvig (@russianforces) October 26, 2025
“And now the decisive tests have been completed.”
Clearly peturbed by the development, US President Donald Trump told journalists aboard Air Force One on Monday that the announcement by his Russian counterpart of a test was not “appropriate”.
“He ought to get the war (in Ukraine) ended. A war that should have taken one week is now soon in its fourth year. That’s what he ought to do instead of testing missiles,” Mr Trump said.
The missile’s engine is novel and its range is extreme. But military analysts aren’t convinced it is anything like the wonder weapon Putin proclaims it to be.
“I celebrate every ruble Russia invests in this useless and unnecessary missile,” Oslo Nuclear Project researcher Fabian Hoffmann posted to social media.
Centre for Naval Analyses analyst Decker Eveleth agrees: “So far, the only people the Burevestnik has killed are its own designers. Combating Russian propaganda will help keep it that way.”
Putin’s pride, or propaganda?
The launch of the Burevestnik missile comes at a politically significant time for the Kremlin. He’s attempting to use stalled nuclear arms control treaty talks with the Trump Administration White House as leverage in Ukraine peace talks.
It was a risky public relations move.
The missile is believed to have begun development in 2011. The first unsuccessful tests were conducted in 2016. By the time it was announced, Burevestnik had been tested about 13 times, with only two “partial” successes.
President Putin ceremoniously announced its existence in March 2018. It was one of a dozen new “superweapons” he proudly proclaimed would give Russia an unassailable lead in the arms race.
Things haven’t gone so well since.
Putin claims Russia tested its nuclear-powered cruise missile “Burevestnik� on October 21. Gen. Gerasimov reported the missile flew 14,000 km over 15 hours at subsonic speed (900 km/h). The Burevestnik is a ground-launched, top-wing cruise missile with a pulsed nuclear engine and…
— NOELREPORTS 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 (@NOELreports) October 26, 2025
That same year, Norway announced it had detected a radioactive cloud – possibly a contrail from an attempted test launch at Novaya Zemlya.
In August 2019, a failed Burevestnik engine detonated when being recovered from the White Sea near the town of Nyonoksa in Arkhangelsk province. The explosion threw a radioactive cloud across the region, including the Severodvinsk submarine base.
At least five scientists from the state-run nuclear research company Rosatom and two crew died when their recovery barge was consumed by the blast.
Another is believed to have crashed in 2017. It went down in the Barents Sea, west of the Novaya Zemlya peninsula, where this weekend’s test took place.
What is Skyfall?
Putin insists his new missile is “unlike any other in the world.”
“We need to determine the possible uses and begin preparing the infrastructure for deploying these weapons to our armed forces,” Putin told his most senior surviving General, Army Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov.
Putin calls it Burevestnik. NATO has dubbed it the SSC-X-9 Skyfall.
Giving it a nuclear engine is supposed to overcome the limitations of traditional rocket- and turbine-powered cruise missiles.
“The technical characteristics of the Burevestnik generally allow it to be used with guaranteed accuracy against highly protected targets at any distance,” Gerasimov told Putin on Saturday.
I celebrate every ruble Russia invests in this useless and unnecessary missile. https://t.co/mumrThFI5m
— Fabian Hoffmann (@FRHoffmann1) October 26, 2025
Russia claims the nuclear engine gives the cruise missile a range of 20,000km while flying at heights of just 50 to 100m.
In comparison, the US Tomahawk cruise missile can fly between 1200km and 2500km. Exactly how far depends on how long it has to fly low to avoid detection.
The radar defences of most nations are pointed towards the most likely threat.
Being capable, at least in theory, of flying around the world several times over means Burevestnik can bypass such defences and sneak up from behind.
“These assessments of the Burevestnik’s potential capabilities, however, are technically infeasible,” argues Eveleth.
Hyper, or hyped, threats?
Russian military analyst Alexei Leonkov boasted in 2019 that Burevestniks would “trample the aggressor countries into the Stone Age”.
But, so far, the cruise missile hasn’t lived up to its promise.
“It hasn’t really gone very well for a long time,” Eveleth told Radio Free Europe in August. “People died…and they didn’t give up. They kept going for it…. They kept going for it for 15 years. And they are really dedicated to it.”
It’s a similar story for Putin’s other wonder weapons.
The Sarmet “Satan” heavy intercontinental ballistic missile was designed to carry and deploy new “Avengard” nuclear-tipped hypersonic gliders. It exploded during a launch test last year.
Russia's nuclear-powered cruise missile (9M730 Burevestnik/SC-X-9 Skyfall) isn't invincible. It's a subsonic (~260 m/s) cruise missile. NATO aircraft could intercept it. The problem is that Burevestnik is yet another step in an arms race that offers no victory for either side.
— Dr. Jeffrey Lewis (@ArmsControlWonk) October 26, 2025
Putin’s “doomsday” Poseidon nuclear-powered, nuclear-tipped torpedo is supposed to be able to unleash radioactive tsunamis on the shores of major coastal cities.
Moscow claims it was successfully test-launched in 2023. But only two new submarines capable of carrying the weapon have been launched.
Two of the superweapons have been tested against Ukraine. And they’ve not proven so super.
The Kinzhal and Tsirkon hypersonic missiles were touted as being so fast as to be untouchable. But several have been reportedly shot down by Ukraine’s defences.
A flying Chernobyl
“The Burevestnik is not a wonder weapon, and the challenges it poses for NATO security are neither new nor unmanageable,” Eveleth writes.
“It may seem scary on paper, but the technical infeasibility of its mission limits its threat.”
One challenge for the cruise missile is keeping track of where it is and where it is going.
Satellite navigation can be jammed in peacetime. And GPS systems are also likely to be the first target once war breaks out.
Inertial navigation - where a computer constantly recalculates its position based on flight time, speed, wind, altitude, etc - is limited. Dubbed “dead reckoning”, it becomes increasingly erratic the longer it is applied.
This means Russia may be limited to flying the missile via remote control. But that needs accessible mobile communications and internet networks.
But otherwise, the Burevestnik is a large and “noisy” cruise missile.
Its unshielded, air-cooled nuclear reactor would emit trackable infra-red, alpha, beta and gamma radiation. That’s why the US Air Force had one of its WC-135 radiation “sniffer” aircraft in the area at the time of this weekend’s test.
On top of it all, the nuclear engine only propels the cruise missile at subsonic speeds. This makes it eminently interceptable by combat aircraft and other air defences.
“This does not mean that the Burevestnik’s extended range is useless,” Eveleth adds.
“The Burevestnik’s engine could theoretically run for days, allowing the missile to fly from its base in Russia to targets even in the United States, all while flying low to avoid radar”.
But the significance of this is the subject of Russian sabre-rattling, he concludes.
“Perhaps one of the best things NATO can do to stay strong in a crisis is to call out this weapon for what it is—a terror weapon, not a silver bullet.”
