On Wednesday, President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that Russia’s latest intercontinental ballistic missile, the RS-28 Sarmat, is not yet operational, but he promised that it would be deployed “soon.”

“It’s not deployed yet, but it will be soon,” Putin stated during a visit to wounded soldiers at a military hospital in Moscow.

The Sarmat, often referred to as “Satan 2” by Western experts, has the capability to carry several nuclear warheads and is among the advanced missiles that Putin has labeled as “invincible.”

In 2023, Russia’s space agency Roscosmos announced that the Sarmat was operational and ready for active duty, following its initial reveal by Putin in 2018.

“There is nothing like it in the world,” he told the soldiers during his visit.

However, the missile’s testing history raises some concerns.

Open-source analysts indicated in September 2024 that a Sarmat missile had exploded during testing, creating a large crater that was visible in satellite images. The Kremlin chose not to comment on the reported test failure at that time.

The only confirmed successful test of the missile occurred in April 2022.

During his hospital visit, Putin admitted that the Sarmat is less powerful than the Poseidon, a nuclear-powered super autonomous torpedo that he claimed has undergone successful testing.

On Sunday, he revealed that Russia had conducted a test of the Burevestnik, a nuclear-powered intercontinental cruise missile, earlier in October.

Trump described that military exercise as “inappropriate.”