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It’s worth noting, of course, that the U.S. ballistic missile defense shield as it exists today is of defeating the Kremlin’s existing nuclear deterrent capabilities, either. This then brings up the possibility that the Russians simply can’t afford RS-26, whether they want it or not, along with the slew of other they claim to be pursuing.
“It was initially planned to include both the Avangard and the Rubezh in the state armament plan,” the anonymous defense industry source told TASS. “It became clear later that funds would not suffice to finance both systems at a time.”
There’s evidence that this may have been increasingly apparent for some time. Prior to Putin’s remarks in March 2018, there had been of the RS-26 at all for years. The Kremlin was supposed to demonstrate the system to arms control inspectors from the United States first in 2015 and then in 2016, an event that still has not come to pass.
Digging the old UR-100Ns out of storage can be seen as a cost saving measure as much as it is a way to potentially get Avangard into service faster, too. It’s an established design that Russia already knows how to operate and maintain.
And despite Putin’s fiery remarks about the West having failed to contain his country, there are indications that international sanctions in response to Russia’s illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014 and subsequent involvement in that country’s still-simmering civil conflict . In March 2017, the Russian Federal Treasury announced deep cuts to defense spending, which subsequently forced the country to put a host of , including the , on hold indefinitely.
Earlier in March 2018, President Aide Andrei Belousov to trim billions of dollars more from upcoming defense budgets, though he claimed it was because of reduced demands from Russia’s armed forces. “This will be simply because we have passed the peak of saturating our defense forces with new types of armaments and military equipment,” he said.
True or not, there are still serious questions about whether or not Russia will be able to sustain its myriad strategic weapons programs in the future. At present, the country claims to be working on the RS-28 ICBM, Avangard, air-launched hypersonic nuclear missile, a fleet of upgraded , the , the Burevestnik nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed , as well as upgrades to many of its existing designs, including the addition of .
And while it might still be cheaper than an all-new missile, it could easily cost a significant amount of money to rehabilitate the UR-100N ICBMs and make them compatible with the hypersonic boost glide vehicle. that adding Avangard would make the missile substantially longer, too, which would necessitate the modification of the existing silos or the construction of new ones.
Still, with all of these systems in various stages of development or production, it’s easy to see how the Kremlin could have decided it didn’t need the RS-26, too. But with the almost certainly high costs associated with this broad strategic armament program, the Russian government might not have had a choice when it came to deciding whether to keep working on this missile system and it might be forced to curb its ambitions further in the new future.
