Putin announced plans to put the Sarmat systems on combat duty next year.
Russia will place Sarmat intercontinental missiles on experimental combat duty this year, and on combat duty next year.
President Putin announced this at a ceremony in the Kremlin to award the developers of the Burevestnik missile and the Poseidon torpedo.
“This year we will put the Sarmat heavy intercontinental missile system into combat testing, and next year we will put it into combat duty,” he said.
The missile has been in development since the 2000s. Design work was carried out by the Academician Makeyev State Research Center. A state contract for development work was signed in 2011. The creation of the Sarmat missile system was first announced by Strategic Missile Forces Commander Sergei Karakayev in December 2013.
In March 2018, the president reported on the development of the system. Initially, it was expected that the new missile system would begin combat duty as early as 2020. However, the missile's first flight test was conducted in the spring of 2022, and it entered combat duty in September 2023.
The first unit to receive the new missile systems was the Uzhur Missile Division in Krasnoyarsk Krai. Furthermore, plans have been announced to deploy the Sarmat missile in the Dombarovsky missile launch area in the Orenburg Region.
