President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that a new generation of Russian Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of carrying 10 or more nuclear warheads will soon enter service with the Russian military, Reuters reports.

In a speech to new graduates of military academies, Putin emphasized the importance of Russia’s “triad” of nuclear forces, referring to land-launched nuclear weapons, submarines and strategic bombers.

“The most important task here is the development of the nuclear triad, which is the key guarantee of Russia’s military security and global stability,” he said.

“Already about half of the units and formations of the Strategic Missile Forces are equipped with the latest Yars systems, and the troops are being rearmed with modern hypersonic Avangard missile systems.

The first Sarmat launchers will be put into service “in the near future,” Putin said.

It will be recalled that in February, when US President Joe Biden was in Ukraine, Russia conducted a test of the intercontinental ballistic missile “Sarmat” (code Satan II in the West), which seems to have failed. It was also tested (successfully, according to the Russians) in 2022, when Dmitry Rogozin announced that 50 types of missiles would soon be ready.

The Sarmat was first unveiled in 2016, and Russian state media reported that it had a range of more than 11,000 kilometers. The missile can carry a 100-ton warhead and was designed to be a successor to the R-36M Voivoda intercontinental ballistic missile.

Putin warned last year that the missile would “give food for thought to those trying to threaten Russia.”

Western experts called the 2022 test a “nuclear saber” and saw it as an attempt to divert attention from Russia’s military failures at the time, such as the sinking of its Black Sea flagship, the Moskva.

But then-Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby called the 2022 tests “routine” and said they “were not a surprise.” In addition, “he was not considered a threat to the United States or its allies.”