Images May Reveal Site of 'Invincible' Russian Missile

Vladimir Putin has been boasting of building a nuclear-armed cruise missile more powerful than anything in existence for six years now, and two US researchers say they think they've discovered the construction site.

• Where: Using satellite images, the researchers have detected a massive construction project near a nuclear warhead storage site about 300 miles north of Moscow, reports Reuters. Telltale signs include nine horizontal launch pads and massive protective berms, say Decker Eveleth of CNA research and Jeffery Lewis of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.
• The missile: Russia calls it 9M370 Burevestnik while NATO dubs it the SSC-X-9 Skyfall. Putin announced plans in 2018 for the nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed missile he calls "invincible."

• Claims, doubts: Russia says the missile would be virtually undetectable and have what amounts to an unlimited range. Western experts aren't so sure about that. "The Skyfall is a uniquely stupid weapon system, a flying Chernobyl that poses more threat to Russia than it does to other countries," is how Thomas Countryman, a former State Department official with the Arms Control Association, described it.
• Assessment: "It tells us that the system is apparently getting close to some kind of an operational deployment because it does look like an operational site," Pavel Podvig, considered an expert on Russian weaponry, tells Newsweek. "It's too early to say that things are actually deployed there, but it appears that it's moving in that direction."

(The missile has had a poor record in known tests.)