Officer: US missile defense unlikely to be impregnable to Russian Strategic Missile Forces

MOSCOW, December 16. /TASS/. The existing and would-be system of US national missile defense cannot be impregnable to Russia's Strategic Missile Troops, Commander Col Gen Sergey Karakayev told reporters on Wednesday.

"Experts' assessments prove that the current deployed system of the missile defense, according to its information and fire capabilities, cannot be impregnable to a massive impact by the group of Russia's Strategic Missile Forces," Karakayev said ahead of Day of Strategic Missile Forces.

Integration of different in tasks and characteristics means in the new system of US missile defense, according to US estimates, will allow to organise several echelons of defense and to secure "an impact on space and air targets" along any section of their trajectories, the general said.

Primarily, missiles and their warheads are meant to be destroyed and so laser and kinetic energy weapons, anti-missile systems and ground-, aircraft-and space-based interceptor systems are planned to be incorporated into the would-be systems of anti-missile defense, he said.

Also, the plans aimed at developing Russia’s Strategic Missile Troops and the strategic nuclear force on the whole have been "corrected with regard to the forecasted growth and scope of consistent development of the information and striking power means of this system." Karakayev said.

"The implementation of our plans will allow to use advanced and effective means and ways to counteract any system of anti-missile defense," he said adding that "the RVSN will be developing by upgrading weapons in the maximum possible degree, but by taking into consideration the START Treaty."

Creation of intercontinental ballistic missiles of the next generation "will secure a guaranteed neutralisation of new potential threats," he said.

Commander says new START Treaty does not limit patrol routes of ground missile systems

The New START Treaty does not define or restrict the territory in which Russian’s land-based mobile missile systems Yars and Topol can move, Commander of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces (RVSN), Sergey Karakayev went on to say.

"The Treaty does not envisage limiting of the territories within which the mobile missile systems of the Strategic Missile Forces can move, so the combat patrol routes can go through unlimited territory, taking into account the possibilities and performance characteristics of the available land-based mobile missile systems," Karakayev said, replying to a corresponding question.

According to the Treaty, the official said, the Russian Federation and the United States "exchanged information on their strategic offensive armaments, including the exact geographical coordinates of silo launchers". "These data are confidential," the commander of the Strategic Missile Forces said.

The Treaty between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, also known as the New START Treaty, entered into force on February 5, 2011. Under the Treaty, the United States and Russia must meet the Treaty’s central limits on strategic arms by February 5, 2018; seven years from the date the Treaty entered into force. Each Party has the flexibility to determine for itself the structure of its strategic forces within the aggregate limits of the Treaty. These limits are based on the rigorous analysis conducted by Department of Defense planners in support of the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review.

Aggregate limits: 700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), deployed submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and deployed heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments; 1,550 nuclear warheads on deployed ICBMs, deployed SLBMs, and deployed heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments (each such heavy bomber is counted as one warhead toward this limit); 800 deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers, and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments.