Mr Putin said that the nuclear-armed Sarmat missile would enter combat service at the end of the year. It was built to replace the Soviet-built Voyevoda, News.Az reports, citing Morning Star.

“This is the most powerful missile in the world,” Mr Putin declared, adding that the combined power of the Sarmat’s individually targeted warheads is more than four times higher than that of any Western counterpart.

After overseeing a military parade on Red Square on Saturday commemorating the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, Mr Putin suggested the conflict in Ukraine is coming to an end.

Russia’s effort to revamp its nuclear forces could encourage the United States to launch a costly modernisation of its own arsenal, critics have warned.

The last remaining nuclear arms pact between Russia and the US expired in February, leaving no caps on the world’s two largest atomic arsenals for the first time in more than 50 years and fuelling fears of an unconstrained nuclear arms race.

Mr Putin has described the Sarmat and other new weapons as being part of a Russian response to the US missile shield that Washington developed after its 2001 withdrawal from a cold war-era pact that limited missile defences.

Russian military planners have feared a missile shield could tempt Washington to launch a first strike that would knock out most of Moscow’s nuclear arsenal in hopes of intercepting a small number of surviving missiles fired in retaliation.

The Russian president said: “We were forced to consider ensuring our strategic security in the face of the new reality and the need to maintain a strategic balance of power and parity.”