Russia has released the first image of its new nuclear missile, a weapon so powerful that it could wipe out nearly all of the United Kingdom or France.

The RS-28 Sarmat thermonuclear-armed ballistic missile was commissioned in 2011 and is expected to come into service in 2018.

The first images of the massive missile were declassified on Sunday and have now been published for the first time.

It has been dubbed "Satan 2", as it will replace the RS-36M, the 1970s-era weapon referred to by Nato as the Satan missile.