Russia carried out a test of an ICBM - SARMAT, dubbed Satan II, which carries nuclear warheads - which appears to have failed on Monday, just as President Joe Biden was about to arrive in Ukraine. CNN reports it, citing some US officials.
Russia has given advance notice to the United States of the launch across deconfliction lines. Another official said the test posed no risk to the US and was not considered an escalation.
The Sarmat missile has already been successfully tested in the past: according to US officials if Monday's test was successful, Russian President Vladimir Putin would have emphasized it in his State of the Nation address yesterday. Instead, Putin made no mention of the launch.
Meanwhile, the day after Putin's speech, the former president and current deputy secretary of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev returns to speak. And he does it with his usual incendiary tones: "If the United States wants to defeat Russia, then we have the right to defend ourselves with any weapon, including nuclear ones," he writes on his Telegram channel.
«Russia – he adds – will be torn apart if it interrupts the special operation without winning. If the United States stops supplying the Kiev regime with weapons, the war will end. It is obvious to all reasonable forces that if the United States wants Russia defeated, then we are on the verge of a global conflict."
(Unioneonline/L)