Giant fireball: The ordnance, claimed the world’s most powerful non-nuclear bomb, explodes during a test in this undated image shown by Russian Channel One television in Moscow on Tuesday.

Moscow: Russia’s military on Tuesday announced that it had successfully tested a lethal new air-delivered bomb, which it described as the world’s most powerful non-nuclear weapon.

In what appears to be the Kremlin’s latest display of military might, officials said Moscow had developed a new thermobaric bomb to add to its already potent nuclear arsenal.

Russia’s state-run Channel One television said the ordnance — dubbed the Father of all Bombs — is four times more powerful than the U.S.’s Mother of all Bombs.

“The results of tests of the aviation explosive device that has been created have shown that it is comparable with nuclear weapons in its efficiency and potential,” Alexander Rukshin, a deputy chief of the Russian armed forces staff, told the channel.

“You will now see it in action — the bomb which has no match in the world is being tested at a military site,” said the report. It showed a Tupolev 160 strategic bomber dropping the bomb over a testing ground. A large explosion followed.

Vacuum bomb

The aviation vacuum bomb, which is also known as a fuel-air bomb, was the mightiest ever created, it added.

The announcement comes at a time of growing tension between Russia and the West, and follows a tumultuous eight months in which Vladimir Putin has denounced U.S. power, torn up a conventional arms agreement with NATO, and grabbed a large, if symbolic, chunk of the Arctic.

The development appears to be another response to the Bush administration’s plans to site elements of its missile defence system in central Europe. Mr. Putin has denounced the plan, arguing that it upsets Europe’s strategic balance, and has vowed to respond.

The U.S. Massive Ordnance Air Blast, nicknamed the Mother of all Bombs, is a large-yield satellite-guided, air-delivered device, which previously enjoyed the dubious accolade of the most powerful non-nuclear weapon in history.

Thermobaric weapons differ from conventional explosive weapons by using oxygen from the atmosphere, rather than carrying an oxidising agent in their explosives. They produce more energy than normal weapons but are hard to control.

The US used similar fuel-air munitions to clear jungle for helicopter landings during the Vietnam War. The Soviet Union also developed its own fuel-air weapons, deploying them against China and in Afghanistan, and the Russian army used them in its second war in Chechnya.