Russia test-launches new 'Satan 2' ballistic missile

На космодроме #Плесецк проведены очередные бросковые испытания новой жидкостной #МБР тяжёлого класса #Сармат, которая заменит ракеты #Воевода pic.twitter.com/xedqG7106E

— Минобороны России (@mod_russia) March 30, 2018

The Russian Defence Ministry has published a video showing its new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) being test-launched in the north of the country.

The footage, published on Twitter this morning, shows the Sarmat missile - codenamed 'Satan 2' by NATO - being launched from the Plesetsk spaceport. It is the second time the rocket has been fired since last December.

The missile was one of several advanced Russian weapons President Vladimir Putin spoke of in his state-of-the-nation address in early March.

The Sarmat ICBM, which has an operational range of up to 18,000 kilometers (11,185 miles), is part of a government large-scale rearmament program, announced in 2010 aimed at modernizing the country's nuclear forces by 2020. The modernization will cost Russia approximately 20 trillion rubles ($348 billion).

The supersonic RS-28 Sarmat is believed to be capable of carrying up to 10 or 15 nuclear warheads.

The state-run Russian news agency TASS says the Sarmat missile is due to begin being mass produced in 2020 and should become operational the following year.

"Russia remained and remains the largest nuclear power. Do not forget, no one really wanted to talk to us. Nobody listened to us," Putin told a crowd in Moscow earlier this month, according to a translation by Sputnik, a Russian-government-controlled news agency. "Listen now."