DTN News - UKRAINE UNREST: Russia Test-Fires ICBM Amid Tension Over Ukraine
Source: DTN News - - This article compiled by K. V. Seth from reliable sources Reuters(NSI News Source Info) TORONTO, Canada - March 5, 2014: Russia said it had successfully test-fired an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) on Tuesday, with tensions running high over its military intervention in Ukraine's Crimea region.
A U.S. official said the United States had received proper notification from Russia ahead of the test and that the initial notification pre-dated the crisis in Crimea. The Russian Defence Ministry could not be reached for comment.
The Strategic Rocket Forces launched an RS-12M Topol missile from the southerly Astrakhan region and the dummy warhead hit its target at a proving ground in Kazakhstan, Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Yegorov told state-run news agency RIA.
The launch site, Kapustin Yar, is near the Volga River about 450 km (280 miles) east of the Ukrainian border. Kazakhstan, a Russian ally in a post-Soviet security grouping, is further to the east.
Russia conducts test launches of its ICBMs fairly frequently and often announces the results, a practice seen as intended to remind the West of Moscow's nuclear might and reassure Russians that President Vladimir Putin will protect them.
Russia and the United States signed the latest of a series of treaties restricting the numbers of ICBMs in 2010, but Moscow has indicated it will agree further cuts in the near future and is taking steps to upgrade its nuclear arsenal.
Putin has emphasised that Russia must maintain a strong nuclear deterrent, in part because of an anti-missile shield the United States is building in Europe which Moscow says could undermine its security.
The Defence Ministry said the test could help Russia improve its capability of foiling anti-missile shields, RIA reported.
Moscow says it is concerned U.S. interceptors could shoot down some of its ICBMs in flight, weakening its arsenal. The United States says the shield is meant to protect against threats from states such as Iran and poses no threat to Russia.
The 20-metre (60-foot) long RS-12M, known in NATO parlance as the SS-25 Sickle, was first put into service in 1985, six years before the collapse of the Soviet Union, and is designed to carry a nuclear warhead. Its range is 10,500 km (6,000 miles).
RT-2PM Topol - Intercontinental Ballistic Missile
At the time of the signing of the START I Treaty in 1991 the Soviet Union had deployed some 288 Topol missiles. Deployment continued, and at the end of 1996 a total of 360 Topol missiles were deployed.
The Topol missile was deployed at previously developed deployment sites. After the INF Treaty was signed in 1987 several SS-20 deployment sites were adapted to launch the Topol missiles. The United States expressed specific concerns during the INF treaty negotiations. When the SS-25 missile system was deployed in the field, with its missile inside the canister and mounted on the launcher, the US contended that the canister might conceal an RSD-10 Pioneer missile. This was of concern because unlike the single warhead of the RT-2PM Topol, the RSD-10 carried up to 3 warheads. A resolution was reached after the Soviet Union agreed to allow inspection parties to use radiation detection systems to measure fast neutron intensity flux emanating from the launch canister. A launch canister with a missile inside containing a single warhead, such as the RT-2PM Topol, emitted a different pattern of fast neutrons than did one with a missile having three warheads, such as the RSD-10.
Provisions of the SALT II agreement prohibited the deployment of more than one new missile (which became RT-23UTTh), it was officially declared by the Soviet Union that the RT-2PM Topol was developed to upgrade the silo based RT-2. The US government disputed this view, contending that the missile was clearly more than 5% larger and had twice the throw-weight as the RT-2 and therefore constituted a new missile system. Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov, Soviet Chief of General Staff cancelled the September 1, 1983 test flight of the RT-2PM Topol which was to be launched from Plesetsk (the launch site in northwest Russia used for test firing of solid fuel propellant ICBMs)- 24 minutes later to land in the Klyuchi target area on the Kamchatka Peninsula. The night of the scheduled launch was the night that Korean Air Lines Flight 007 intruded Soviet airspace over Kamchatka.
An RT-2PM Topol with two MIRVs may have been tested in 1991, and the missile was tested at least once with four MIRV warheads, but there has apparently been no further development of a multiple warhead version. This became a point of contention during the conclusion of the 1991 START negotiations, at which time the US pressed for a definition of "downloading" (removing warheads from missiles) that would complicate any Soviet attempt suddenly to deploy multiple warheads on the RT-2PM Topol.
Russia plans to reequip approximately 400 silos where obsolete UR-100, RT-2 and MR-UR-100 missiles are located. Under the START II Treaty, which never had and most likely will never have a binding effect, Russia would have been able to place 90 single-warhead solid fuel missiles in reequipped R-36 silos. In order to guard against a break-out scenario involving the rapid reconversion of R-36 silos on-site inspection became a very important aspect of START II verification.
(Additional reporting by Phil Stewart in Washington; Writing by Steve Gutterman; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
*Link for This article compiled by K. V. Seth from reliable sources Reuters
*Speaking Image - Creation of DTN News ~ Defense Technology News
*Photograph: IPF (International Pool of Friends) + DTN News / otherwise source stated
*This article is being posted from Toronto, Canada By DTN News ~ Defense-Technology News Contact:dtnnews@ymail.com
©COPYRIGHT (C) DTN NEWS DEFENSE-TECHNOLOGY NEWS
