Russia’s nuclear-powered 9M730 Burevestnik (SSC-X-9 Skyfall) is a low-altitude, long-endurance cruise missile, with a claimed 14,000 km in 15 hours still unverified, built to slip past missile defenses and push the nuclear arms race into a harder phase.

The United States opened the nuclear era in July 1945 with the test of a 20-kiloton atomic bomb at Alamogordo, New Mexico, in July 1945, and then dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 to force Japan to surrender in World War Two.

President Vladimir Putin hailed the first long distance test of a nuclear-powered cruise missile that he said has no equal in the West.

Putin announced a successful final test of the Burevestnik, a new nuclear-powered, nuclear-capable cruise missile with a range of up to 14,000 km.

The Russian leader has ordered his country’s armed forces to prepare for the deployment of a weapon with an almost unlimited range and an unpredictable flight path.

Putin first announced the Burevestnik in March 2018, describing it as a nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed cruise missile with 'unlimited range and unpredictable trajectory'

The third version of the M51 submarine launched ballistic missile (SLBM) known as “M51.3” entered operational service on 24 October, 2025.