President Donald Trump shrugged off Russia’s recent test of its nuclear-capable Burevestnik missile, and said Russian President Vladimir Putin should be focused on ending the war in Ukraine instead.

On Sunday, Putin hailed the country’s “unique” nuclear-powered Burevestnik missile after the military carried out new tests. The Burevestnik, also known in NATO parlance as the SSC-X-9 Skyfall, is a ground-launched, nuclear-powered cruise missile.

Why It Matters

Russia says the Burevestnik can strike the U.S. and is able to swerve around Western air defenses. Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s most senior general, said the Burevestnik had covered roughly 8,700 miles in a 15-hour test flight on October 21.

Western experts are largely skeptical of the Burevestnik’s capabilities and its place in Moscow’s arsenal. “It’s an infinitely stupid system,” William Alberque, a former head of NATO‘s nuclear non-proliferation center currently with the Pacific Forum nonprofit, told Newsweek on Sunday, adding the U.S. had tested—and abandoned—a similar system in the early Cold War days.

What To Know

“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 traveled to Japan, reacting to Putin’s announcement of the Burevestnik test. “So, I mean, it doesn’t have to go 8,000 miles.”

“They’re not playing games with us. We’re not playing games with them either,” Trump continued.

“I don’t think it’s an appropriate thing for Putin to be saying,” the Republican said. “By the way, he ought to get the war 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.”

Analysts and officials have consistently said the Kremlin believed Russian forces would swiftly take control of Ukraine when Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. More than three-and-a-half years later, Russia controls roughly a fifth of Ukrainian territory.

The Trump administration had long appeared reluctant to force Moscow to the negotiating table, but on Wednesday slapped the Kremlin with sanctions aimed at squeezing Russia’s ability to keep up its war effort. The White House unveiled a raft of sanctions against Russia’s two largest oil companies, Rosneft and Lukoil, shortly before the European Union adopted its 19th sanctions package against Moscow, targeting its energy profits and financial institutions. 

Russia has said its position on a peace deal for Ukraine hasn’t changed. Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, welcomed the sanctions but called for further measures to pressure Moscow after Russia launched drone and missiles attacks on the country over the weekend. At least five people were killed in Kyiv between late Friday night and early Sunday, according to Ukrainian authorities.

Putin unveiled the Burevestnik in March 2018 with a host of other next-generation weapons, including the Poseidon, a nuclear-powered, nuclear-tipped torpedo.

The Kremlin said on October 22 that Putin had supervised a host of strategic nuclear weapon tests of sea-, air- and ground-launched weapons, but did not mention Burevestnik. Russia tested a Yars intercontinental ballistic missile and a Sineva submarine-launched ballistic missile, while a strategic bomber aircraft launched unspecified cruise missiles, according to a government readout.

What People Are Saying

Trump told reporters on Monday: “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.”

The Burevestnik missile is a “unique product, unlike anything else in the world,” Putin said in remarks reported by state media on Sunday.

Update 10/27/25, 5:30 a.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.