Interview with Evgeny Buzhinskiy, a retired Russian lieutenant-general, Ph.D. Military Sciences, chairman of the Executive Board of PIR Center, about the first successful test of the new intercontinental ballistic missile RS-28 Sarmat on April 20 from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome.

Yesterday Russia tested a new fixed-based ICBM Sarmat. How does it differ from the Voyevoda, which it will replace, and what are its advantages?

Firstly, it is a heavy missile, it has a long range, somewhat about 13,000 km, it carries 10 warheads of 750 kt each, and can carry the Avangard hypersonic gliding unit. But what is most important that it is strictly Russian-made rocket, it is produced in Krasnoyarsk, unlike the Voyevoda, which was made at Yuzhmash (Ukraine). Therefore, this is a breakthrough in our rocket science, we have not made heavy rockets before.

Is it true that Sarmat, as Vladimir Putin said, "has no analogues in the world"?

Of course, it is. Since not a single country, including the United States, has heavy silo-based missiles. We are the only country that has such heavy missiles.

As you know, Sarmat can get to the territory of the United States through the South Pole bypassing the American THAAD. Does the US have other ways to bring down the Sarmat?

Sarmat is uninterceptable. Especially with a hypersonic unit installed, which is impossible to intercept at all. Of course, theoretically, ICBMs can be intercepted by the same GBI that the US has installed in Alaska. But they are deployed in Alaska, while the range of this missile allows it to reach the United States not only through northern polar routes, but also through the South Pole. And from the south, the United States has only two installations deployed at the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, and this is clearly not enough to intercept. So, it is uninterceptable.