President Trump issued a stark warning to Vladimir Putin after the Russian leader touted a successful 15-hour test of his “invincible” nuclear-powered missile — a “flying Chernobyl” capable of reaching the U.S.
“They know we have a nuclear submarine, the greatest in the world, right off their shore,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Monday as he prepared to depart for Japan.
Putin, dressed in military fatigues, touted the Burevestnik missile in a Russian state media video over the weekend as a “unique product, unlike anything else in the world.”
“We need to identify potential uses and begin preparing the infrastructure for deploying this weapon in our armed forces,” he added.
President Trump was not impressed by Russia’s boasting, stating: ”We test missiles all the time, but you know, we do have a submarine, a nuclear submarine. We don’t need to go 8,000 miles.”
“They’re not playing games with us. We’re not playing games with them either,” President Trump continued. “I don’t think it’s an appropriate thing for Putin to be saying. By the way, he ought to get the war [with Ukraine] ended. A war that should have taken one week is now in its, soon, fourth year. That’s what he ought to do instead of testing missiles.”
⚡ Russia has successfully tested its nuclear-powered Burevestnik cruise missile:
Putin announces successful test of Russia’s 9M730 Burevestnik (SSC-X-9 “Skyfall”), a nuclear-powered, nuclear-capable intercontinental cruise missile said to have unlimited range and the ability to… pic.twitter.com/zNkjcyK3OF
— OSINT Updates (@OsintUpdates) October 27, 2025
The Burevestnik, dubbed the SSC-X-9 Skyfall by NATO, is a nuclear-powered cruise missile Russia claims can evade Western air defenses and travel vast distances.
“It’s a tiny flying Chernobyl,” Gen. Gerasimov said, referencing the 1986 disaster. The weapon has been in development for years, making Sunday’s test an alarming milestone.
“This is a bad development. It is one more science fiction weapon that is going to be destabilizing and hard to address in arms control,” said Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear nonproliferation expert at Middlebury College.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky renewed calls for U.S. long-range missiles to pressure Putin into peace. He praised President Trump’s new sanctions on Russia as impactful but said more pressure is needed to end the war that began in February 2022.
“President Trump is concerned about escalation. But I think that if there are no negotiations, there will be an escalation anyway. I think that if Putin doesn’t stop, we need something to stop him. Sanctions is one such weapon, but we also need long-range missiles,” President Zelensky told Axios Sunday.
