The Sarmat is capable of carrying 10 or more nuclear warheads and decoys, and of striking targets thousands of miles away in the United States or Europe.
Space is rapidly becoming a bipolar frontier in the wake of heightened tensions between Russia's space programs, and NASA and its associated space agencies.
"We didn't have a choice. It was the right decision," he said, joined by Belarusian President Lukashenko, on the 61st anniversary of the first manned space flight.