New Nuke Missiles will guarantee Russia security: paper
Pastor Dale Morgan
New Nuke Missiles will guarantee Russia security: paper*
Reuters
Thursday, June 14, 2007; 3:34 AM
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Two new types of ballistic nuke missiles will
guarantee Russia's security for decades, the army daily quoted the
commander of strategic missile forces on Thursday as saying.
President Vladimir Putin has made the strengthening of Russia's armed
forces a top priority. He has singled out strategic missiles as key
instruments to ensure Russia's military security.
Russia last month tested the RS-24, a new intercontinental missile with
multiple warheads which can be independently targeted.
Top officials said it was capable of breaking through any existing or
potential missile defenses, such as those planned by the United States.
"One can be absolutely sure that the new RS-24 missile together with the
Topol-M mobile and stationary missile complexes will guarantee Russia's
security for the next 20-30 years," Krasnaya Zvezda daily quoted General
Nikolai Solovtsov as saying.
He said the deployment of RS-24s would start in the next few years.
Russian officials have said that a U.S. decision to withdraw from the
Soviet-era Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty to go ahead with the creation
of a new missile defense system has sped the development and
introduction of the RS-24.
During last month's test, an RS-24 was fired from a mobile launcher at a
cosmodrome far to the north of Moscow. Officials said that under an hour
later it successfully hit its targets at a test site on the sparsely
inhabited far eastern peninsula of Kamchatka.
The 22-metre-long Topol-M is an intercontinental ballistic missile
carrying a single warhead. It was first developed during the 1990s after
the collapse of the Soviet Unio and has been later upgraded. It can be
launched either from silos or from mobile launchers which can be
camouflaged and hidden in forests.
Solovtsov said that RS-24s and Topol-Ms would become the backbone of
Russia's strategic forces, replacing existing RS-20 and RS-18 missiles
when they were decommissioned.