WORLD / Europe
Russia says new ICBM can beat any system
(AP)
Updated: 2007-05-30 07:10
Russia's new intercontinental ballistic missile takes off from Plesetsk
launching pad, May 29, 2007. The missile can break through any missile
shield, First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said on Tuesday,
Itar-Tass news agency reported. [Reuters]
MOSCOW - Russia tested new missiles Tuesday that a Kremlin official
boasted could penetrate any defense system, and President Vladimir Putin
warned that U.S. plans for an anti-missile shield in Europe would turn
the region into a "powder keg."
First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said Russia tested an
intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple
independent warheads, and it also successfully conducted a "preliminary"
test of a tactical cruise missile that he said could fly farther than
existing, similar weapons.
"As of today, Russia has new tactical and strategic complexes that are
capable of overcoming any existing or future missile defense systems,"
Ivanov said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency. "So in terms of
defense and security, Russians can look calmly to the country's future."
Ivanov is a former defense minister seen as a potential Kremlin favorite
to succeed Putin next year. Both he and Putin have said repeatedly that
Russia would continue to improve its nuclear arsenals and respond to U.S.
plans to deploy a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic
- NATO nations that were in Moscow's front yard during the Cold War as
Warsaw Pact members.
Russia has bristled at the plans, dismissing U.S. assertions that the
system would be aimed at blocking possible attacks by Iran and saying it
would destroy the strategic balance of forces in Europe.
Russia's President Vladimir Putin (L) and First Vice-Prime Minister
Sergei Ivanov tour Russian research centre, the Kurchatov Institute, in
Moscow April 18, 2007. [Reuters]
"We consider it harmful and dangerous to turn Europe into a powder keg
and to fill it with new kinds of weapons," Putin said at a news
conference with visiting Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates.
Russian arms control expert Alexander Pikayev said the new ICBMs appeared
to be part of Russia's promised response to the missile defense plans
and, more broadly, an effort to "strengthen the strategic nuclear triad -
land-based, sea-based and air-based delivery systems for nuclear weapons
- which suffered significant downsizing" amid financial troubles after
the 1991 Soviet collapse.
The ICBM, called the RS-24, was fired from a mobile launcher at the
Plesetsk launch site in northwestern Russia. Its test warhead landed on
target some 3,400 miles away on the Far Eastern Kamchatka Peninsula, the
Strategic Missile Forces said in a statement.
The new missile is seen as eventually replacing the aging RS-18s and
RS-20s that are the backbone of the country's missile forces, the
statement said. Those missiles are known in the West as the SS-19
Stiletto and the SS-18 Satan.
The RS-24 "strengthens the capability of the attack groups of the
Strategic Missile Forces by surmounting anti-missile defense systems, at
the same time strengthening the potential for nuclear deterrence," the
statement said.
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