Well, that’s assuming that the explosion was, in fact, a test. Maybe the site got struck. With the help of the US, these sites can be located and hit (by Ukraine, of course) with the long range weapons that they claim to not have.
I want verification of just about everything these days.
Curious, No? A rocket motor’s fuel exploding would be relatively low velocity as explosions go, and wouldn’t leave much, if any, of a crater. And something loaded in the upper payload area wouldn’t dig into the ground either. If there is actually much of a crater Rods from God comes to mind. Rocket test sites are made to be easy to clean up——if all one is doing is testing motors?
I&W (Indications and warnings) is probably the most critical of all intel functions by mil. If there had been a nuke payload we would already know from radiation monitors. If so, there would be no reason for the DS to hold tight to that info. The RS-28 is liquid fueled and the fueling aspect is a key I&W aspect. It has three stages, and if fueled which seems likely based on the explosion it isn’t surprising that a malfunction would produce such. Ours are a solid propellant and there is no ‘package’ when they test them.
It comes as a Russian ammo dump was destroyed in an apocalyptic explosion in a Ukraine drone attack
So the 'crater is from an ammo dump going up.