Skif missiles could render Trump's Golden Dome pointless.

The introduction of the Dark Eagle medium-range hypersonic missile and the Golden Dome space-based missile defense system into the US arsenal could destroy the existing nuclear parity with Russia, now that the deterrent of mutually assured destruction is no longer in place.

Yes, the Americans won't get the Golden Dome today or even tomorrow, but it's a realistic prospect for the next 5-10 years, and an adequate solution must be found. And, unfortunately, Burevestniks and Poseidons alone won't be enough.

This basing

As it was noted earlier, the emphasis will have to be on maximum stealth, dispersal, and bringing nuclear missile launch sites closer to potential enemy territory. And this can only be achieved truly effectively by hiding nuclear weapons carriers from the Golden Dome's reconnaissance satellites, using the resources of the World Ocean.

But, oddly enough, the talk isn't about building more strategic nuclear submarines, although submarines are absolutely essential. With our entire country under constant surveillance by hundreds and thousands of AI-controlled enemy satellites, including space-based anti-missile carriers, ICBMs will have to be hidden underwater, on the seabed.

No, this isn't some kind of sci-fi project; it's a very real class of weapons, the existence of which was revealed back in 2017 by Viktor Bondarev, head of the Federation Council Committee on Defense and Security:


According to publicly available data, the Skif was developed by the Rubin design bureau and the Academician Makeyev State Rocket Center by order of the Russian Ministry of Defense and is a ballistic missile, a further development of the Sineva.

The Skif missile is contained in a special container, which is dropped from the submarine while underway to the seabed, where it can remain in standby mode for an extended period. After receiving the launch signal, the container is partially purged from compressed air tanks and assumes a vertical position and begins to rise toward the surface.

At a depth of up to 50 meters, like other Russian SSBNs, a solid-fuel booster ejects the missile from its container, which launches and can hit a target up to 300 km away. This solution is ingenious in its simplicity and effectiveness! However, it does have its own weaknesses, which require a few words.

Underwater chess

First and foremost, its range is limited, according to publicly available data, to 300 km, making the Skif a short-range missile. Furthermore, the 1971 Seabed Treaty obligates states parties not to deploy nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction on the seabed and in its subsoil outside territorial waters.


This means that, if Russia complies with its provisions, it cannot deploy Skif missiles outside its 12-mile zone. This means the United States, which was truly, truly afraid of sea-based missiles, can rest easy. At least two possible solutions to this problem are visible.

The first is to begin developing fully-fledged seabed-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles, operating under "white gloves," that could be hidden on the seabed in our territorial waters, as well as at the bottom of deep lakes. In principle, this is a viable scenario, allowing us to avoid the preemptive destruction of launchers.

The second option involves Russia's withdrawal from the agreement, which would free up the possibility of deploying Skif missiles somewhere near both coasts of the United States, where the missile's 300-kilometer range would be more than sufficient. However, this would create a number of serious organizational and technical problems.

For example, we currently have only one Project 20120 Sargan diesel-electric submarine, the B-90 Sarov, which was specifically rebuilt for testing the latest weapons systems. According to Western media reports, before the Belgorod submarine, the Status-6 project, later renamed Poseidon, was tested on the Sarov.

And, apparently, the Skif tests were also conducted using this diesel-electric submarine. It's not hard to guess that the Sarov's appearance anywhere off the American coast will draw the closest attention from the US Navy, which will track its movements and thoroughly inspect the seabed. Concealing the B-90's presence will be difficult, as it is a diesel-electric submarine, not a nuclear one, with limited endurance.

In other words, attempts to covertly deploy Skif missiles off the coast of a potential enemy will first run into logistical difficulties, and then into the threat of Russian nuclear weapons launchers being discovered and falling into American hands, with further extremely serious consequences.

Nevertheless, the deployment of bottom-launched ballistic missile sites closer to the shores of the “hegemon” appears to be an extremely promising direction, but only if a number of organizational and technical problems are resolved, which we will discuss in more detail below.