Russia’s leaders reported the successful testing of two of the country’s strategic, nuclear-powered ‘wonder weapons’ in late October 2025.
In Moscow on 29 October Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that the previous day had seen a successful testing of the nuclear-powered 2M39 Poseidon unmanned underwater vehicle (UUV)/torpedo, which is capable of delivering both conventional and nuclear warheads to unlimited operational ranges.
Calling the Poseidon test a “huge success”, Putin stated, “For the first time we managed not only to launch it from a submarine using its booster motor, but also to turn on the nuclear power plant, which powered the vehicle for a certain period of time.”
Putin added that the Poseidon is unique in terms of its speed and depth of movement. “There’s nothing like it in the world,” he said. “Its rivals are unlikely to appear anytime soon and there are no existing interception methods.”
Indeed, the Poseidon could deliver a nuclear warhead anywhere in the world while – unlike an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) – remaining immune to interception by any missile defence system.
The 2M39 Poseidon, which has been given the NATO reporting name ‘Kanyon’, is believed to have a length of up to 20 m, a mass of up to 100 tonnes and a speed of up to 100 km/h.
Meanwhile, Russian Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov, meeting with Putin in Moscow on 26 October 2025, announced that Russia’s 9M730 Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile had been successfully tested to a range of 14,000 km.
“The test was conducted on October 21. We have launched a multi-hour flight of a nuclear-powered missile and it covered a 14,000-kilometre distance, which is not the limit,” Gen Gerasimov was quoted as saying by Russia’s TASS news agency. “The missile was in the air for about 15 hours, and this is not the limit as well.”
Gen Gerasimov noted that during the test flight of the Burevestnik missile all of its specified vertical and horizontal manoeuvres were met and “therefore it demonstrated high capabilities to bypass missile and air defence systems”.
It is understood that the 9M730 Burevestnik missile, which has been given the NATO reporting name SSC-X-9 ‘Skyfall’, is launched from an inclined launcher using a detachable rocket booster, after which its miniaturised nuclear powerplant takes over. The threat from the weapon stems from both its unlimited range and its low flight profile, which would give ground-based missile defence radars very little opportunity to detect it.
While an actual use of the Burevestnik would inevitably cause an emission of radiation at the point of impact, the fact that it is a strategic weapon means that this is not something Moscow appears to be concerned about in the whole scheme of things.
The extent to which the Burevestnik has been successfully flight-tested has previously been the subject of some debate among Western intelligence agencies. Putin claimed on 5 October 2023 that the weapon had been successfully flight-tested, while the Washington, DC-based Nuclear Threat Initiative non-profit organisation reported on 29 October 2024 that the Burevestnik had been successfully tested in January 2019 and September 2023. On 8 August 2019 an explosion at the Russian State Central Navy Testing Range at Nyonoksa in Arkhangelsk Oblast, widely believed to be a Burevestnik test, killed five scientists working for State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom, with peaks of radiation detected in the vicinity.
The Poseidon and Burevestnik are two of the six Russian ‘wonder weapons’ unveiled by Putin on 1 March 2018, the others being the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle, the 3M22 Zircon scramjet-powered anti-ship hypersonic cruise missile, the Kh-47M2 Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missile and the RS-28 Sarmat super-heavy ICBM.
The Kinzhal entered service in December 2017 and was first used against Ukraine in 2022, while Putin stated in his speech on 29 October that the Sarmat ICBM “will be operational soon”.
