Finally, Now is Finished Putin Plans to Wipe Out US with Satan 2 Intercontinental Ballistic Missile System

Satan 2: Putin Tells U.S. 'You Will Listen To Russia Now' as he Deploys Hypersonic Nuclear ICBM

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia is developing a new generation of advanced nuclear weapons including a hypersonic intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that can reach almost anywhere in the world and cannot be shot down by anti-missile systems.

Putin made the claim during his annual presidential address to the Federal Assembly in Moscow. He officially unveiled a new hypersonic nuclear-capable ICBM called the RS-28 Sarmat and said it would be able to strike anywhere in the U.S.—adding that testing of the weapon is now complete. NATO calls the nuke “Satan 2”.

A video was played during the speech showing off the weapon’s alleged capabilities, reported RT, Russian state media. Putin said other countries only listen to Russia when it creates new weapons systems, reported Sputnik, another of Russia’s state organs. “You will listen to us now,” he added.

Russia Today Sarmat

Russia's RS-28 Sarmat, called Satan 2 by NATO, a hypersonic ICBM Putin claims can hit anywhere in the U.S. and which has been deployed in the south of his country. RT screenshot

There have been media reports about the RS-28’s development since 2014. But Putin’s speech claims testing of the weapon is finished—and he said it is already deployed in the south of Russia, Sputnik reported.

Claims made in the Russian media about the RS-28’s capability state that it carries a payload powerful enough to destroy an area the size of Texas and has a propulsion system so advanced that it can defy existing missile defense systems.

Putin’s nuclear grandstanding comes at a time when he is pushing to expand Russia’s sphere of influence, especially in the Middle East. After the U.S. and its allies including Britain decided not to fully enter the conflict in Syria back in 2013, after the Assad regime was accused of using chemical weapons on his own people, Russia stepped in to support the Syrian government militarily and financially as it attempted to regain control of the country.

Now it is using its foothold in Syria to cement its influence in the region and push the U.S. back. In a statement to the House Armed Services Committee, General Joseph L. Votel, commander of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), warned that Russia's presence in Syria threatened America's ability to "dominate the airspace".

Vladimir Putin Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses the Federal Assembly, including the State Duma parliamentarians, members of the Federation Council, regional governors and other high-ranking officials, in Moscow, Russia March 1, 2018. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

Votel accused Russia of acting as “arsonist and firefighter” in Syria by “fueling the conflict in Syria between the Syrian Regime, YPG, and Turkey, then claiming to serve as an arbiter to resolve the dispute”.

He said Russia’s role in Syria established Moscow “as a long-term player in the region, and the Kremlin is using the conflict in Syria to test and exercise new weapons and tactics, often with little regard for collateral damage or civilian casualties.”

Votel warned: “An increase in Russian surface-to-air missile systems in the region threatens our access and ability to dominate the airspace.”

Russia and the U.S. are the two most heavily armed nuclear powers in the world. The U.S. State Department said America has 652 deployed ICBMs, submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and heavy bombers, while Russia has 527. It said the U.S. possesses 1,350 nuclear warheads on deployed ICBMs, SLBMs and heavy bombers, while Russia has 1,444.

And the U.S. claims 800 deployed and nondeployed nuclear launchers, while Russia is estimated to have 779. Both powers are obliged by nonproliferation treaties to reduce their nuclear stockpiles.

Putin is also facing a presidential election at home in March 2018 though he and his allies are accused by his opponents of rigging it in his favor, something he denies, and he is expected to win by a landslide.

Pentagon Official Says U.S. Hypersonic Weapons Research Underfunded

Sharon Weinberger

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Foreign Policy Magazine•March 1, 2018

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  Pentagon Official Says U.S. Hypersonic Weapons Research Underfunded

Amid reports of a new Russian missile, DARPA's chief says the United States lacks infrastructure.

The same day that Russian President Vladimir Putin touted new weapons that can travel at more than several times the speed of sound, a senior Pentagon official told reporters that the United States is underfunding its own research base for similar work.

Putin claimed in a lengthy address on Thursday that his country’s military forces have made rapid advances in hypersonic missile technology. According to translations of his remarks published by the Russian news service Tass, Russia’s hypersonic complex called Kinzhal in southern Russia has “started carrying out its experimental and combat duty missions” and Russian forces “are actively developing hypersonic weapons,” like other scientifically advanced countries.

“I’m not going to confirm or deny President Putin’s statement,” Steven Walker, the director of the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency told reporters Thursday at a breakfast talk.

Yet Walker went on to say that he felt the U.S. military’s own hypersonics research was underfunded.

Asked if the United States is spending enough on its infrastructure to help develop hypersonic weapons, Walker replied, “I would say no.”

The Donald Trump administration’s recently proposed fiscal 2019 budget request increased funding for hypersonics research, though it is spread across several services and agencies to include DARPA, NASA, and the Missile Defense Agency. But Walker said some areas are still underfunded, particularly the facilities needed to test hypersonic vehicles.

“The dollars that were allocated in this budget were great, but they were really focused on adding more flight tests and getting some of our offensive abilities further down the line into operational prototypes,” he said. “We do need an infusion of dollars in our infrastructure to do hypersonics.”

In recent years, military experts have pointed to Russia’s and China’s work on hypersonics to argue for more U.S. funding for the work. Walker said China, in particular, has invested in hypersonics research at an alarming rate.

“You look at number of facilities they’ve built to do hypersonics,” he said. “It surpasses the number we have in this country, and is quickly surpassing it by two- or three-x.”

China is making hypersonics a “national priority,” Walker said. “I think we need to do the same.”

Last year, DARPA briefed then-Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work about hypersonics, Walker said. At the meeting, DARPA tried to persuade the Pentagon’s leadership to start a national initiative in hypersonics. “We did push for a very comprehensive initiative in the budget process,” he said.

That didn’t happen, however.

“We did receive a budget increase for more hypersonics,” he said. “I don’t think we got everything we wanted, but it’s a good first step.”

Hypersonic vehicles, whether missiles or aircraft, are designed to travel at many times the speed of sound. In theory, such weapons could strike anywhere in the world in less than an hour. To date, however, such weapons are still only in the testing and development phase.

DARPA’s own history with hypersonics has been mixed. In the 1980s, the agency started work on a classified concept known as Copper Canyon, a notional space vehicle that would take off and land like an airplane. It eventually grew into the National Aero-Space Plane, which was touted by then-President Ronald Reagan as “a new Orient Express that could, by the end of the next decade, take off from Dulles Airport, accelerate up to 25 times the speed of sound, attaining low earth orbit or flying to Tokyo within two hours.”

The space plane was an expensive flop that was never built, though aerospace engineers who work on hypersonics credit it with advancing research in the area.

Since then, DARPA and the Pentagon have pursued other programs with varying degrees of success. About seven years ago, DARPA attempted to build and fly a hypersonic glide weapon, but canceled the program after two failed flight tests.

More fruitfully, DARPA and the Air Force tested a Boeing-built hypersonic vehicle called the X-51 Waverider, which completed a series of tests, though it was never designed to be an operational weapon.

DARPA now is involved in several projects related to hypersonics.

Some 10 years ago, Walker, then a program manager at DARPA, was in charge of a short-lived hypersonics aircraft program called Blackswift. Congress, which was critical of DARPA’s approach to pushing an overly aggressive plan, ended funding for it.

There are no immediate plans to revive the idea of a hypersonic aircraft, Walker confirmed, though he said DARPA is working with the Air Force on the Advanced Full Range Engine, which is designed to power a vehicle at speeds of more than Mach 5

“It’s the engine I would have used in Blackswift,” said Walker, who added that, if the project were successful, he would work to revive that hypersonic aircraft program.

“I think we want to see how the engine performs,” he said. “If I have anything to do with it, we will have a program.”

Nuclear War Is ‘Lurking Like a Time Bomb’ Despite Inter-Korean Talks, North Korean Analyst Says

A North Korean researcher at the country’s Social Science Institute warned that the recent inter-Korean dialogue did not lessen the threat of nuclear war on the Korean peninsula, in an article published in the ruling-party-controlled newspaper Rodong Sinmun.
The article criticized the North Korea crisis talks co-hosted earlier this month by the U.S. and Canada in Vancouver, at which representatives of 20 countries vowed to keep enforcing U.N. sanctions and pressuring the regime to abandon its nuclear and missile development program, for raising tensions.
In particular, it singled out statements made by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis calling on North Korea to choose dialogue and the denuclearization path or be prepared to face consequences as evidence of American belligerence.

“What [the U.S.] wishes all the time is not the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula but the instability of the situation and the aggravation of military tensions,” the article read.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un gives field guidance at the Pyongyang Pharmaceutical Factory, according to this undated photo released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang, on January 25, 2018. Nuclear war is ‘lurking like a time bomb’ despite inter-Korean talks, a North Korean analyst says. KCNA/via Reuters
North and South Korea have begun talking after two years of silence to discuss cooperation at the Winter Olympic Games, a development South Korean President Moon Jae-in hoped would lead to military talks about denuclearization. But according to the researcher, this is not a goal that can be accomplished as long as the U.S. maintains a military presence on the peninsula.
“The situation of the Korean Peninsula is still severe, even if the currents of dialogue and peace flow ostensibly. A dark vortex of nuclear war is lurking like a time bomb beneath them,” the analyst wrote.
Secretary Mattis was asked by reporters about the Vancouver talks and providing credible military options to counter the North Korean threat on his way back from Vietnam. “Military options remain, since 1953, in place. They remain there today. We could fight tonight, shoulder to shoulder with the South Koreans, if they’re attacked,” Mattis said.
U.S. military officials have been saying for months that their troops are prepared to fight, but also warning that a war in the peninsula would take a tremendous toll on all those involved in the conflict. Just this week, four-star Marine Corps General Robert Neller told the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies that a war on the Korean Peninsula would test soldiers both physically and mentally. “It will be a very, very kinetic, physical, violent fight over some really, really tough ground, and everybody is going to have to be mentally prepared,” Neller said.

‘A Total F***up’: Russian Mercenaries in Syria Lament U.S. Strike That Killed Dozens

Recordings have emerged in which Russian mercenaries subjected to a joint U.S. strike that killed dozens of their comrades describe the incident as “a total fuckup.”
Polygraph.info, a Voice of America project, published three recordings, which it received from a source close to the Kremlin. The source said that the recorded phone calls were made by personnel from CHVK Wagner, a Russian private military company.
The incident in question occurred on the night of February 7 and early morning of February 8, when Syrian government forces—backed by Russian mercenaries employed by CHVK Wagner—attempted to capture an oil refinery near the Syrian city of Deir Ezzor. After Russian personnel came into contact with American troops stationed there, the U.S. forces responded with artillery and airstrikes.

A U.S. military convoy drives on a Syrian highway on September 29, 2017. Recorded phone calls suggest around 215 Russian mercenaries were killed by U.S. artillery and airstrikes in a battle in Syria on the night of February 7 and early morning of February 8. BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images
Polygraph.info transcribed and translated the conversations recorded.
In the first audio clip, a man says, “One squadron fucking lost 200 people...right away, another one lost 10 people…and I don’t know about the third squadron but it got torn up pretty badly, too.... So three squadrons took a beating.”
The man explains that American forces used artillery and helicopter gunships to repel the assault. “They were all shelling the holy fuck out of it, and our guys didn’t have anything besides the assault rifles…. Nothing at all, I’m not even talking about shoulder-fired SAMs or anything like that…. They tore us to pieces, put us through hell,” he says.
The speaker is also critical of the Russian government’s response to the incident, saying, “They beat our asses like we were little pieces of shit...but our fucking government will go in reverse now, and nobody will respond or anything and nobody will punish anyone for this.”
“My guys just called me, they are sitting there drinking, many are MIA, it’s a total fuckup, another humiliation.... Nobody gives a fuck about us.”
In a second clip, a man explains that the battle quickly descended into a massacre as the Russians lost all armored support. “Out of all vehicles only one tank survived and one BRDM (Armored Reconnaissance Vehicle) after the attack, all other BRDMs and tanks were destroyed in the first minutes of the fight, right away.”
Russian forces have been sent to Syria to support President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. The Kremlin has denied that any of those killed on the night of February 7 and early morning of February 8 were Russian service members. DOMINIQUE DERDA/AFP/Getty Images
In the third clip, a man can be heard explaining the Russian convoy was a few hundred meters away from target when the American forces raised their flag and hit the Russians with a heavy artillery barrage, wiping out the first column instantly. “We got our fucking asses beat rough, the Yankees made their point,” he said. “What were they hoping for, that the Yankees are just going to fuck off?... It’s bullshit, some people can’t even be fucking ID’ed, too many people there.”
In another of the clips, a man claims, “There are about 215 fucking killed” on the Russian side.
It has been reported that up to 300 Russians may have died in the strikes. The Kremlin initially denied all reports of Russians being involved in the incident. However, in recent days, Russia’s foreign ministry has acknowledged that “several dozen” Russians were killed or wounded.
A foreign ministry report said, “Russian service members did not take part in any capacity, and Russian military equipment was not used.” It said those involved were “Russian citizens” who were in Syria “of their own free will and for different reasons.”

Russian Forces Launch Nuclear-Capable ICBM Designed to Beat Anti-Missile Defenses

Russia’s strategic missile troops have test launched an intercontinental ballistic missile designed to thwart defense shields like that in Europe, as Moscow continues drills to decide on the future of its post-Soviet military capabilities.
The Topol missile is Russia’s first ICBM developed after the end of the Cold War, and the military fired a test launch on Tuesday, from western Russia. Moscow has developed a handful of missiles of various designs to revamp its arsenal in the post-Soviet era. In October Moscow announced that its newest ICBM, the Sarmat 2, would be tested before the end of the year, though Moscow has only tested the likes of the Topol so far.
The Topol missile launch was designed to test features aimed at evading detection and penetrating missile defenses. The Russian Ministry of Defense announced earlier this week that it had run the new test from the Kapustin Yar range, near the Kazakh border. The testing at the range was partly geared towards penetrating defenses, such as those the U.S. has pledged to provide for its European allies.

“During the tests, specialists obtained experimental data that will be used in the interests of developing effective means of overcoming anti-ballistic missile defence and equipping the perspective grouping of Russian ballistic missiles with them,” the statement published by state news agency Itar-Tass read.
The statement did not reveal where the target of the missile was supposed to be.
A Russian Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile launcher drives at the Red Square in Moscow, on May 9, 2014, during a Victory Day parade. Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images
While Russian forces appear to have closed ranks in recent months near the country’s border with North Korea after Pyongyang carried out a series of missile tests this year, the Topol tests have been triggered by the situation on Russia's western flank. Moscow has repeatedly threatened some tangible response to the U.S. missile shield hosted in Poland and Romania.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has promised that whatever the Kremlin’s response is, it will be “rougher, cheaper… but it will be ultimately effective.”
NATO allies Romania and Poland have volunteered to take on elements of the U.S.-provided missile shield, though officials in Russia have portrayed this as a sign of the alliance’s desire to expand into the Kremlin’s former sphere of influence. In 2015, the deputy head of Russia’s National Security Council issued a threat to the two countries, urging them to proceed with hosting the shield if they enjoyed being “targets” to Russia’s own missiles.
"Whether they understand this position, [or] find it acceptable, whether it is the basis of their commitment in the alliance, I cannot comment," the deputy chairman Yevgeny Lukyanov said.
In an interview with U.S. director Oliver Stone, broadcast earlier this year, Putin chastized countries that endorse the missile shield, calling them “vassals” of the U.S.

Putin Dismisses Worries of New Cold War As ‘Propaganda’ In Second Megyn Kelly Interview

The Russian president went on to boast about a new missile that “easily surpasses and avoids an anti-missile defense system.”

NBC

Vladimir Putin has found a new bestie in American media.
The Russian president, fresh off a state of the nation address that featured digital renderings of an “invincible” nuclear weapon targeting the state of Florida, sat down for the second time in less than a year with NBC’s Megyn Kelly on Thursday. In the interview, Putin denied that the creation of a warhead “invincible in the face of all existing and future systems of both missile defense and air defense” in any way fomented the beginnings of a new cold war.
“The individuals who have said that a new cold war has started are not really analysts—they do propaganda,” Putin told Kelly when asked if Russia had started an arms race. “If you were to speak about arms race, than an arms race began at exactly the time and moment when the U.S. opted out of the anti-ballistic missile treaty.”
When pressed, however, Putin did not directly refute claims by some analysts that the weapon had not, in fact, been fully tested.
“Every single weapons system that I have discussed today easily surpasses and avoids a missile defense system,” Putin said. Some, though, “still have to be fine-tuned and worked on. Others are already available to the troops and battle-ready.”

Some intelligence analysts pointed to Putin’s use of a digital rendering of the weapon’s flight as evidence that a successful test flight had not been conducted—a charge Putin dismissed.
“All of those tests were successful,” Putin said. “It’s just each of these weapons systems are at a different stage of readiness. One of them is already on combat duty. It’s available to the troops.”

Details regarding the missile, dubbed the RS-28 Sarmat, have been scarce, although Russian state-owned news site Sputnik has described it as a two-stage rocket with a mass of 100 tons and a range of 6,200 miles. A Russian government-owned TV network has claimed that the new missile, which features a payload of 12 independent warheads, can wipe out an area “the size of Texas or France.”
Putin’s sitdown with Kelly comes 17 days before an election in which he is widely expected to win a fourth term as Russia’s president—and eight months after another interview with Kelly, in which the newly minted NBC News host was widely lambasted as ill-prepared. In that interview, Putin went largely unchallenged as he dismissed allegations of Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election, and implied that American intelligence services assassinated John F. Kennedy.
Kelly’s full interview with Putin will be aired by NBC “in the coming days,” according to NBC News anchor Lester Holt.