How Dangerous is Russia’s New Nuclear-Tipped Air-to-Air Missile?

"The Russian Aerospace Forces have begun to introduce the service’s first class of nuclear-tipped air-to-air missile into service, according to a report by the U.S. Armed Forces Defence Intelligence Agency. While little remains known regarding the missile class, it is widely expected to be a new variant of the R-37M - a missile class that was first introduced in the mid-2010s. The R-37M carries a very large 60 kilogram warhead, around three times the size of those usually integrated onto air-to-air missiles, which provides a greater capacity to integrate a miniaturised nuclear warhead. If fired from high altitudes and at high speeds by MiG-31BM interceptors, the missile can engage targets up to 400 kilometres away. The R-37M is the world’s fastest known air-to-air missile class with a Mach 6 speed, and has the second longest range int he world surpassed only by that of the Chinese PL-XX. It is manoeuvrable enough to be able to neutralise small fighter sized aircraft. The integration of nuclear warheads onto the R-37M would allow a single Russian fighter or interceptor to neutralise full squadrons of enemy targets, entire salvoes of cruise missiles, or large swarms of drones, with each MiG-31BM interceptor or Su-35 fighter able to carry four missiles.

The fielding of nuclear-tipped air-to-air missiles follows a broader trend in the Russian Armed Forces towards using nuclear assets to asymmetrically counter the much larger forces of the country’s NATO adversaries. A nuclear armed variant of the R-37M could be particularly useful against stealth aircraft such as the F-35, which has been deployed in very significant and growing numbers across the country’s European, Arctic and Far Eastern borders by Western Bloc and allied states. Although Russian radars may struggle to form a target lock on the F-35 from longer ranges sufficient to hit such a fighter at very long ranges, the fielding of a nuclear-tipped air-to-air missile reduces the need for accuracy, with the wide blast radius and wider electromagnetic pulse potentially being highly effective against such targets. The R-37M has been combat tested extensively in Ukraine, and been evaluated highly positively in both Russian and Western assessments. The missile is primarily deployed by MiG-31BM interceptors, which have by far the highest cruising speeds of any combat jet in the world and carry far larger and more powerful sensor suites than other Russian combat aircraft."


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