Russia’s RS-28 “Sarmat” Clears Second Flight Test, Regiment Deployment Slated for End-2026

The fanfare evokes the 1974 rollout of the R-36M “SS-18 Satan,” which similarly rebalanced nuclear math by packing up to 10 MIRVs and prompted the 1979 SALT-II limits. Like then, today’s debut comes after the demise of a restraint regime—the US exit from the ABM Treaty in 2002, Russia’s suspension of New START inspections in 2023, and the INF Treaty’s death in 2019—rekindling the offense-versus-defense spiral that has defined strategic forces since the first R-7 Semyorka in 1957. Technically, Sarmat’s liquid fuel and sub-orbital path echo the Soviet Fractional Orbital Bombardment System tested in 1968, underscoring how old concepts resurface when treaties lapse. Strategically, one more multi-warhead missile does not alter assured-destruction logic, but it signals that Moscow is willing to spend scarce resources to preserve a superpower image—much as the USSR did in the late Brezhnev stagnation era. On a 100-year horizon, the more salient trend may be the steady erosion of verification mechanisms, coupled with emerging hypersonic and AI-driven C3 systems; whether Sarmat itself flies in 2126 is doubtful, but the precedent it sets—nuclear modernisation without arms-control guardrails—could shape the strategic landscape for decades, making future crises less predictable and escalation thresholds fuzzier.