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The Burevestnik is seen by the Kremlin as a low-flying "stealth" cruise missile incapable of interception by existing Western air defences and delivering nuclear warheads anywhere
around the globe. Putin has called it "a radically new type of weaponry" with "unlimited range and unlimited ability to manoeuvre". "Russia is committed to a massive
investment in new systems like this to defeat US missile defences," warned Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear weapons expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.
"We are stumbling toward an arms race." The latest revelation comes despite last month's explosion during a missile test of a "doomsday" weapon in the White Sea,
leading to a radiation leak in which at least five scientists and technicians died, and others were poisoned. Some accounts have linked the incident to the Burevestnik, although various
experts dispute this, the Kremlin has refused to reveal the truth. Russia has made multiple attempts to test the unlimited range Burevestnik – also known as Skyfall – none of which have been
successful, according to the US intelligence report. Despite these failures, sources cited by CNBC with knowledge of the assessment, say that there is now an accelerated timeline for it
being ready for war. It is believed to have been tested once earlier this year and four times between November 2017 and February 2018, on each occasion resulting in a crash. But Russia
boasted in earlier this year that tests of the weapon's nuclear power unit were "successfully completed" during "a major stage of trials". The trials "sustained
the stated specifications of the reactor ensuring the missile's unlimited range", claimed a source. A separate recent US intelligence assessment found that the explosion on 8
August off a missile testing range at Nyonoksacame during a recovery mission to salvage a lost Burevestnik from the seafloor, said CNBC. The radiation released was "one thousand times
higher than lethal", it was reported. He told CNBC: "[Donald] Trump's personal friendship with Putin is no substitute for the treaties that restrained the nuclear superpowers.
"Whatever the two leaders say, the US and Russian militaries are spending billions on new nuclear weapons targeted at each other."
