Experts assessed the readiness of new Russian nuclear weapons

The Pentagon answered journalists' questions about the new Russian weapons that the United States was "completely ready", and at the same time reminded of its budget of $ 700 billion - now it will definitely not decrease. But US military and international experts have been trying for days to assess the seriousness of Vladimir Putin's statements about a new Russian nuclear weapon. We have collected everything you need to know about it.

What has become clear about the weapons that Putin spoke about:

• All the projects listed by Putin have already been included in the state armaments program for 2018-2027, learned . Kommersant
• The closest thing to real deployment is the Sarmat missile system, the Avangard warhead and the Kinzhal airborne hypersonic missile, follows from the analysis of Kommersant and Vedomosti . All these projects have been developed for several years.
• Alexander Khramchikhin, deputy director of the Institute of Political and Military Analysis, explained to The Bell that the commissioning of the Sarmat looks like the most realistic thing, and the Kinzhal missile system is already in experimental combat operation. It is not clear at what stage all other developments are, says Khramchikhin.
• Underwater drone "Status-6" (it first became known from a strange leak at the end of 2015), most likely, will not be put into service soon .
• The least plausible is a nuclear-powered cruise missile, says military expert Vasily Sychev. The problem is in the nuclear installation itself - it is not clear what kind of installation it is, when it was developed and how they managed to make it compact enough, he says.
• doubt the real existence of nuclear-powered cruise missiles . Both Russian and American military experts

What American experts say about Putin's novelties:

Most doubt that Putin's statements (especially those about the nuclear-powered cruise missile) are true. Given the recent failures of Russian missile launches, the idea that Russia has unexpectedly created a fundamentally new nuclear weapon seems unrealistic to them.

• Both the US and the USSR were designing nuclear-powered cruise missiles back in the 1960s, but the technology was quite difficult to implement back then, says Douglas Barry, an expert in the military aerospace service at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. According to him, such technology could really change the balance of power in the world - it’s just not clear how far Russia has gone: entered the line “develop a nuclear engine for a rocket” into the budget, or is already ready to put the rocket into service.
• Fox News correspondent at the Pentagon, Lucas Tomlinson, citing American officials , wrote that the cruise missile is not yet in service, and tests in the Arctic, contrary to Putin's statements, were unsuccessful.
• Another question - if there really were tests of a nuclear-powered rocket, how could they go unnoticed? The tests would certainly leave a radioactive trace in the air that would be noticed by the Americans, is sure Reuters war correspondent Jerry Doyle . However, the media note that last year radioactive particles were found in northern Europe and Alaska .

What do the West think about the future of relations with Russia:

Most opinions, as expected, come down to the fact that Russia has declared a new Cold War and we need to be ready for this challenge.

• The Trump administration made the right choice in building a revamped nuclear program based on concerns about Russia, said Michaela Dodge, missile defense expert at the Heritage Foundation.
• According to Beatrice Finn, director of the International Campaign to Ban Nuclear Weapons, Russian developments "make it clear that we have entered a new arms race that will return us to the Cold War with a constant fear of death."
• "In case you missed it, the Cold War was a lot like what's happening now," said John Cirincione, president of the nuclear foundation Ploughshares. The similarity, according to analysts interviewed by the WSJ, is that with a weak economy, Russia has begun to actively play geopolitics.

Anastasia Stogney, Anastasia Yakoreva