Vladimir Putin appears in trouble over readying his terrifying new-age hypersonic Satan-2 nuclear missile - his ultimate weapon with which to strike the West.
Expected tests of this 15,880mph “unstoppable” big beast flagged as imminent in June have yet to materialise.
This comes amid new rumours that a second batch of unspecified nuclear weapons tests ordered by Putin this month have failed.
It was claimed today that of five scheduled tests on various weaponry between October 14 and 20, only two went ahead but the results were not successful leaving Putin “upset” and fearing “sabotage”.
There had been claims that he had deployed his K-329 Belgorod nuclear submarine, carrier of apocalypse underwater drone Poseidon, yet there has been no confirmation of any such test.
One theory is that Russian officials are hyping dirty bombs precisely because they realise their nuclear arsenal is untrustworthy and not ready for use.
There is no independent evidence of a battery of failed tests this month, as asserted by Russian Telegram channel General SVR today.
Yet there appears to be a significant delay in tests on Putin’s much-vaunted 208-ton Satan-2, known in Russia as Sarmat.
The first and only known test of this missile, the size of a 14 storey tower block, was announced to great fanfare as soon as it took place on April 20, with Putin in touch by video-link.
The silo-based Satan-2 launch was from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia.
In May, former head of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin, seen as a close Putin ally, said almost 50 Satan-2 missiles, which were in mass production, would soon be on combat duty.
And in early June, a major ICBM test was scheduled and locals near the Kura test range were warned to stay clear of the target site in remote Kamchatka.
But this test never happened.
On June 25, Rogozin boasted: ‘We are absolutely on schedule, we are now preparing for the second flight test of the Sarmat.”
The following month Rogozin was fired for unknown reasons with his promised new job yet to arrive.
This week he was seen in military fatigues visiting the war zone.
Back in July, his successor, ex-deputy premier Yury Borisov, repeated the claim that the missile is in mass production without evidently reiterating Putin’s goal of Satan-2 being on combat duty by December.
Now Russia has only agreed to allow US teams to inspect the missile by February 2024.
Defence analysts suspecting hypersonic hyperbole have pointed out that Russia’s R-36M2 Voevoda missile was tested no less than 17 times before it was put on combat duty.
Another missile - RT-2PM Topol - was tested a dozen times before deployment.
“In this context, the truth of the terms bandied about by Rogozin — that Sarmat is in [serial] production and is soon to be placed on ‘combat duty’ — appear dubious,” defence expert Leonid Nersisyan has said.
“It is far likelier that Sarmat will undergo the same testing, prototyping and experimentation programme as its predecessors,” he wrote in Shephard Media.
“Actual acceptance of the ICBM into service with the Strategic Missile Forces looks impossible before the end of 2022 and is hardly achievable by 2024.”
In early July, Rogozin visited the Krasmash defence factory in Krasnoyarsk, in eastern Siberia, which he labelled the “Doomsday Plant” , to inspect the process of producing Satan-2 for flight tests.
The missile was rolled out into a forest for the cameras - and sabre-rattling Rogozin said: "The world’s most powerful global-range nuclear-tipped missile is being prepared for new tests.”
Back in April, after the first launch, Rogozin vowed there would be “a few more tests to prove the system's compliance with the technical parameters set by the chief client - the Defence Ministry”.
He later highlighted a 26ft deep crater made at the Kura test site by the missile without a nuclear warhead.
“With a nuclear charge, such a crater at an enemy site will be…well, very large and very deep - and radioactive.
“And not just one, but exactly as many as the most powerful nuclear missile in the world will deliver to the territory of a fierce enemy.
“And we will soon have almost 50 such Sarmats [the missile is known in the West as Satan-2] on combat duty.
“It remains only to advise the aggressors to talk more politely with Russia.”
Yet the official boasting over Sarmat has visibly ceased except on propaganda state TV shows where threats are regularly made to target it - or Poseidon - at the West.
General SVR has claimed that scheduled nuclear weapons tests initiated by Putin on October 7 and 12 were cancelled.
Today, the channel said: “From October 14-to-20, there were five more attempts to test nuclear weapons…
"In only two cases [did] the tests [take] place, but their results upset the president more than they encouraged [him].
On October 14, underground tests of nuclear weapons in Irkutsk region,”did not correspond to the declared military data”.
Underground tests scheduled for October 17 and 18 were cancelled for "technical reasons”.
Underwater tests in the Barents Sea were also aborted on October 20, and an underground test in the Kemerovo Region had questionable results, it was claimed.
Supposed “superpower” tests in the Gulf of Finland were labelled “a fiction”.
More than $7 billion dollars were poured into Putin's ears in the form of promises to create the latest super-powerful weapons that are "almost ready for testing".
But they were not ready, with a theory that sabotage was the cause.
Instead it was claimed by the channel that the dirty bomb plan was hatched to mask the failures.
This involved blaming Ukraine for unleashing an attack on its own territory.
Russian TV propagandist Dmitry Kiselyov notoriously told viewers that Russia should “plunge Britain into the depths of the sea” with its “underwater robotic drone Poseidon” causing a 1,640ft tsunami.
Details of its unique high speed 125 mph underwater propulsion system have been a closely guarded Russian secret.
General SVR channel has long claimed that Putin is suffering from abdominal cancer, Parkinson’s disease and a schizoaffective disorder.
Its claims cannot be verified but it was among the first to report in advance the shape of Putin's recent mobilisation strategy.
It is reportedly authored by an exiled Kremlin lieutenant-general, known by the alias Viktor Mikhailovich.
The channel has claimed that the Kremlin is seeking to ban it but has so far failed.
