MOSCOW, February 3. /TASS/. The first serial deliveries of RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles intended to replace Soviet-era Voyevoda heavy ICBMs in Russia’s Strategic Missile Force will start in 2021, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexei Krivoruchko said on Monday.

"The first serial missiles will enter service in 2021," he wrote in an article published in the January edition of the magazine Radio-Electronic Technology issued by the KRET Group.

The concept of the Sarmat system stipulates the delivery of warheads along the trajectories that considerably complicate their destruction even by the most advanced missile defense systems. The new missile allows delivering strikes against facilities at a range of up to 18,000 km, has a launch weight of 208.1 tonnes and a payload weight of about 10 tonnes.

In late December 2019, it was reported to Russian President Vladimir Putin at the National Defense Control Center that the flight tests of the new missile would be completed in 2021.