Putin threatens to deploy new Satan II nuclear missile – which can reach UK in just three minutes

Vladimir Putin has threatened to deploy Russia’s new Satan II nuclear missile by the end of 2022, which can reach the UK in just three minutes.

The Russian president has also said the country will continue to strengthen its military after the damage it suffered during the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, praising its troops for fighting “like heroes”.

Hosting military academy graduates at the Kremlin on Tuesday, Putin said Russia will put the first batch of Sarmat ballistic missiles into combat service by the end of the year as part of the effort. The Telegraph reports.

The Sarmat missile, or ‘Satan II’, would be the world’s longest-range intercontinental ballistic missile, capable of hitting a target 18,200 miles – meaning it could easily hit targets in the US and Europe .

Putin previously praised the development of the missile, which was successfully fired in April, “a major, important event” for Russia’s defense industry, and said the Sarmat “will ensure the security of Russia against external threats and those who try our country with aggressive rhetoric think twice.’

Western military experts have said the Sarmat is capable of carrying 10 or more warheads and decoys – easy enough to wipe out areas the size of Britain or France in a single strike.

Russian President Vladimir Putin in the photo leading a meeting of the state consul in Moscow on Tuesday

A photo taken by the Russian Defense Ministry of an RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile being fired during a test launch from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome

Putin’s ‘propagandist-in-chief’ Dmitry Kiselyov previously threatened to drown Britain twice in a radioactive tidal wave using Satan-2 rocket

And commander of Russia’s strategic missile forces, Colonel Sergei Karakayev, told Kremlin state television last month that they can fly different trajectories and evade missile defense systems.

He said: “There is no existing air defense for the Sarmat missile systems, and there probably won’t be for the next few decades.”

Among other new additions Putin refers to in his speech are S-500 missile defense systems that he claimed are “unrivaled in the world.”

It comes after state television suggested last month that Britain should be bombed ‘within ten minutes’ back to the Stone Age with an attack by new nuclear-capable Zircon – or Tsirkon – missiles.

Politician Aleksey Zhuravlyov and TV propagandist Dmitry Kiselyov had previously argued for Britain beating Satan-2.

And Russian state television pundit, Yaakov Kedmi, a Moscow-born former Israeli diplomat, said Russia’s new hypersonic zircon missile should be deployed to wipe out 50 or 60 power plants in the UK “in ten minutes”, leaving the country in darkness is poured down.

Hosts of Channel One’s 60 Minutes program announced that the cities of London, Paris and Berlin could be hit within 200 seconds of nuclear missile launches in April.

During the show, the chairman of the nationalist Rodina party, Aleksey Zhuravlyov, reflected on what would happen if Russia launched nuclear weapons against the UK, saying: ‘one Sarmat missile and the British Isles will be gone.’

Hearing the comment from one of the hosts, he insisted he “said this seriously”, while another host added that the UK also has nuclear weapons and that “no one will survive in this war”.

Russia has claimed its most powerful nuclear missile, the 16,000 mph hypersonic ‘Satan-2’, could destroy the UK

The show’s producers then showed viewers a map that seemed to suggest that missiles could be launched from Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave between Poland, Lithuania and the Baltic Sea.

It suggested that these could reach Berlin in 106 seconds, Paris in 200 seconds, and London in 202 seconds.