Why Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces Are Prepping to Stage Massive Drills

Thursday, June 15, 2017
By Paul Martin

SputnikNews.com
15.06.2017

Later this month, Russia’ Strategic Missile Troops, the branch of the armed forces which operates the country’s mobile land-based nuclear-armed ICBMS, will roll out ten mobile missile regiments for drills. Military analyst Andrei Kotz explains what message the obvious show of force is meant to send.

Earlier this week, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that ten Strategic Missile Forces regiments (i.e. up to 90 mobile Topol-M and RS-24 Yars ground-based intercontinental ballistic missile launchers) would begin drilling later this month. The elite units will practice everything from movement, to prepping launch positions, to ‘maskirovka’, a term describing the use of camouflage, denial and deception to thwart the prospective adversary’s attempts at aerial reconnaisance and sabotage.

“In the second half of June, missile regiments will begin exercises in field positions in the Tver, Novosibirsk, Sverdlovsk, Kirov, Irkutsk and Ivanovo regions,” the MoD’s press service confirmed.

And while the MoD says that the drills are routine, and part of summer training involving all branches of the service, military analyst and RIA Novosti contributor Andrei Kotz suggested that the maneuvers could also be interpreted as a show of strength, particularly given the present international situation.

The scale of the drills is serious enough. A single Topol-M launcher carries a lone 800 kiloton warhead, but its design also enables it to deploy multiple warheads, using what’s known as a multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV). As for the RS-24 Yars, that system is MIRV equipped from the get-go, with each missile containing at least 4 MIRVs, each armed with 150-250 kiloton warheads. In other words, the drills taking place later this month will involve units which are hypothetically capable of launching hundreds of Russia’s deadliest and most advanced nuclear missiles.

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