Putin humiliated as 'world's deadliest weapon' Satan-2 fails to launch - then explodes

Vladimir Putin has been humiliated after Russia's Satan-2 missile, touted as the "world's deadliest weapon", failed to launch for a fourth time - and then exploded.

The Russian leader was left red-faced after satellite images showed the nuclear-capable Sarmat RS-28 missile exploded as it was being refuelled at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome 500 miles north of Moscow on Saturday. Four fire engines were pictured at the test site after there was visible damage to surrounding roads and buildings. Emergency services were also responding to a "forest fire" that was likely linked to the failed launch.

“The missile detonated in the silo, leaving a massive crater and destroying the test site,” said MeNMyRC, an open-source investigation project. “The Sarmat is a liquid-fuelled missile so this accident could have occurred separate from the actual launch activity,” it said.

Pavel Podvig, an analyst based in Geneva who runs the Russian Nuclear Forces project, admitted the damage caused huge devastation after it malfunctioned. “By all indications, it was a failed test. It’s a big hole in the ground. There was a serious incident with the missile and the silo.”

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov declined to comment in a press briefing on Monday, about the explosion, saying: "We do not have any information on this matter."

The botched launch comes just a week after a member of Putin's security council claimed that a Sarmat missile could wipe out the European Parliament in Strasbourg in under just four minutes.

“For your information, the flight time of the Sarmat missile to Strasbourg is three minutes 20 seconds,” Vyacheslav Volodin said following an EU vote that approved a motion allowing Ukraine to fire back at Russia using Western missiles.

The 115ft weapon has a range of over 11,000 miles and weighs over 208 tons. According to Russia, it can carry up to 16 nuclear warheads and was supposed to be ready by 2018, but repeated failures have pushed this back. Putin claimed in October 2023 that work on the missile was almost complete and his defence minister at the time, Sergei Shoigu, said it was set to form “the basis of Russia’s ground-based strategic nuclear forces”.

The monster hypersonic missile is designed to strike the West by flying over the North or South Poles, making it impossible to strike down by air defences. The Sarmat-Satan-2 complex is due to replace the Voevoda - or Satan - missile which has been in service since the 1980s.

Tom Karako, director of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies' Missile Defence Project, told CBS News the failed Sarmat test is "nuclear saber rattling."

"The United States is, to some extent, playing catch up in terms of modernizing our nuclear force, which in relative terms, is significantly older," Karako said. "Russia's been putting a lot of effort after this, so Sarmat is one piece of that, but it's the many-headed beast."