PUTIN:

You have probably heard that a new, the newest missile with unlimited range and a nuclear propulsion system has been tested recently. It has undeniable advantages, and we can be proud of the achievements of our scientists, specialists, engineers and workers who made it all happen.

The advantages are that this small nuclear propulsion system, with comparable power to, say, a nuclear submarine reactor, is a thousand times smaller than a nuclear reactor on a submarine – a thousand times! But the most important thing is not even that – the most important thing is that while a conventional nuclear reactor takes hours, days or weeks to start up, this nuclear reactor starts up in minutes and seconds. That is a huge achievement.

We will be able to apply this in the national economy, we will be able to apply it in the future when solving the problem of energy supply in the Arctic, and we will use it in the Lunar programme. Even now, radiation-hardened electronics used in the Burevestnik missile are already being used in space programmes, so this is a breakthrough not only in terms of enhancing the country's defence capabilities, but also in science and the national economy of the future as a whole.