5th Russian Regiment, Armed With Topol-M Missiles, Goes On Duty
5th Russian Regiment, Armed With Topol-M Missiles, Goes On Duty
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VLASIKHA /Moscow region/, December 16 (Itar-Tass) - Russia has boosted its Strategic Missile Forces /RVSN/ with the next, fifth regiment equipped with sophisticated Topol-M missiles.
The regiment went on duty at the Tatishchevskaya division in Saratov Region, RVSN commander Col-Gen Nikolai Solovtsov told reporters on Friday.
As of now, the RVSN has 50 newest silo-based and mobile Topol-M missiles that make the core of the country's firepower.
In the Tatishchevo division, missile regiments received these weapons in 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2003.
The plans to develop the RVSN take into account all threats related to a possible expansion of the "nuclear club", i.e. the countries possessing atomic weapons, Solovtsov said.
Yuri Solomonov, director and chief designer of the Moscow Institute of Heat Engineering which designs newest missiles, said the development of such new generation complexes as Topol-M and Bulava is an adequate answer to plans and practical moves by the United States and other countries to deploy weapons in outer space.
"I must make a perfectly responsible statement: whatever is being done in the world in this direction, we've foreseen when creating the Topol-M and Bulava missile complexes. We can tell our public that there is no need to worry. With such complexes available, we are ready for adequate reaction to all these plans and actions," Solomonov underlined.
The developers of Russian missiles must also take into account terrorist threats, he noted.
The institute he heads developed intercontinental solid fuel ballistic missile Topol, Topol-M and Bulava.
"When developing the Topol-M system, designers used entirely new solutions which I cannot disclose for understandable reasons. They allowed for boosting the survivability of the system by an order of magnitude. This complex will remain unrivaled for the next decade. Its uniqueness is in its very short active stretch which rules out interception during the engine operation," he said.
Solovtsov said in an interview, carried by the newspaper Krasnaya Zvezda on Friday, that Russia would retain its two-component group of missiles, keeping both silo-based standby missile complexes and the mobile complexes boasting high combat survivability.
