Russia Verifies Strategic Capabilities

Nuclear vessel launches an ICBM

This friday Russia's Northern Fleet has successfully conducted a training launch of the submarine-based multistage ICBM. The launch from the Barents Sea was conducted under supervision of the commander of the nuclear powered submarine Sergei Lastochkin.
The dummy warhead reached its target on Kura polygon (Kamchatka penisuela) exactly as scheduled.
The training session was a part of the annual personel training program. The submarine completed the mission while remaining submerged.

Long-range Air Force flexes muscles

Russia's Tu-95MS strategic bomber launched a strategic airborne missile this friday against a dummy target in Southern Russia.
Major General in Chief of the Air Force Anatoliy Kornukov said that another Tu-22 bomber launched another 2 tactical missiles later that day.
"All missiles precisely hit their targets on one of the Southern polygons of Russia" mentioned Kornukov.

The pioneer Topol blasts off from Plesetsk

But the biggest news of the day was ripped away by RVSN which launched the ICBM Topol from cosmodrone Plesetsk.
According to the head of RVSN media service Colonel Ilshat Baichurin, at 13:43 local time a silo based ICBM blasted off from Plesetsk and hit a dummy target at the Kura polygon.
The official mentioned that it was one of the very first Topol missiles that entered service back in 1983.
All system operated flawlessly despite that the missile served 1.5 times longer its guaranteed operating age.

Russia Test-Fires Missiles in Public Show

MOSCOW, Feb 19, 2001 — (Reuters) Russia's military successfully test-fired two of its missiles at the weekend in a highly public demonstration that the country's aging nuclear arsenal was in working order.

Beaming strategic air force pilots posed for Russian television with flowers and sparkling wine to celebrate a rare triple missile launch from land, sea and air.

Apart from demonstrating the military's growing confidence under President Vladimir Putin, they served to prove that Russia's large but aging nuclear arsenal was in good working order and Moscow had its finger firmly on the trigger.

The message was seen as directed largely at the United States, with which Moscow is in dispute over Washington's plans to build a missile defense system.

ORT television showed a shining Tupolev Tu-22M "Backfire" swing-wing bomber take off from the Shaikovka air base in the Kaluga region southwest of Moscow, on course for Russia's south where two 300 kilometers (190 mile)-range missiles were fired.

Russia said both rockets hit their targets, as did a long-range strategic missile launched from a TU-95MS "Bear" bomber at about the same time.

TV showed potato-peeling women cooks at the base canteen exulting with cries of "They hit it, they hit it" as news from the test-firing range hundreds of kilometers (miles) away came through.

Two hours later the pilots were welcomed on land with flowers from their wives and bottles of bubbly from their commanders.

But amid the high-spirited celebration the unit's commander Alexander Blazhenko struck a more sobering note, saying the air force remained severely under-funded and only a handful of pilots could train because of a lack of fuel.