Missing the mark: Why Putin’s “wonder weapons” only make Russia less secure
When the New START Treaty between Russia and the U.S. expired on Feb. 5, it marked the first time since the 1970s that no mechanism for limiting the nuclear arsenals of Moscow and Washington was in place. Meanwhile, Russia continues to test nuclear delivery systems under combat conditions in Ukraine, launching the intermediate-range Oreshnik ballistic missile at targets near the Dnipropetrovsk (Nov. 21, 2024) and Lviv (Jan. 8, 2026) regions. Other examples of Putin’s new “wonder weapons” include the nuclear-powered Burevestnik missile, the nuclear-armed unmanned torpedo Poseidon, the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile, the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle, and the air- and sea-launched hypersonic missiles Kinzhal and Zircon. However, despite high praise from pro-Kremlin media, these systems have proven to be of little practical value, either falling well short of hyped-up promises, or proving to be altogether unusable. In fact, they have actually made Russia less secure: by expanding the bounds of what is permissible in the nuclear realm, Moscow is giving its American adversary the green light to test weapons of a similar class.
