Russia tests ‘advanced payload’ ICBM
05 Mar 2014
Russia's defense ministry yesterday announced the country had successfully test an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile carrying a dummy warhead from a test site in southern Russia.
Russian news agency RIA-Novosti said the test was successful as the simulated warhead hit a designated target at a test range in Kazakhstan.
Last year Russian President Vladmir Putin had said the country would deploy 22 new land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles in 2014.
Media reports quoted Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the White House's National Security Council, as saying this was a previously notified and routine test launch of an ICBM. Under a 2010 agreement on nuclear weapons, the US and Russia agreed to notify each other in advance of any such test-launches.
She added, such advance notifications were intended to provide transparency, confidence, and predictability and to help both sides avoid misunderstandings.
According to Russian defence ministry spokesman Igor Yegorov who spoke to state-run RIA news agency, an RS-12M Topol missile was launched from Astrakhan and hit its target in Kazakhstan successfully.
The road-mobile missile had a reported maximum range of 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles).
The Kapustin Yar launch site near the Volga River is located around 450 kilometers to the east of the border with Ukraine, but the missile flew east, away from Ukraine. The last reported test by Russia of a projectile of the kind was on 28 December.
Relations between Washington and Moscow are under severe strain following Russian troop deployment in the Crimean Peninsula of southern Ukraine.
According to Russia its actions came on a request to protect the region's majority ethnic-Russian population. The US has described such a threat as "imaginary."
Meanwhile, Russian main news agencies quoted a top defence official as saying, the purpose of the launch was to test the advanced payload of the intercontinental ballistic missile and check the warhead's ability to ''penetrate missile defence systems''.
The missile which was commissioned into service in 1980s has since then been repeatedly modified. Referred to as the SS-25 Sickle by NATO, the missile has a reported maximum range of 10,000km.
