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Russia’s Strategic Missile Force employs Yars ICBMs in large-scale drills in Siberia

During the drills, the missile troops will perform a march to a distance of up to 100 km

© Sergei Bobylev/Russian Defense Ministry Press Office/TASS

MOSCOW, February 6. /TASS/. Over 2,500 troops are involved in a tactical exercise with Yars mobile intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) systems of the Novosibirsk missile formation, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Thursday.

"As part of the tactical drills, the Yars road-mobile missile systems went on combat patrol routes. Special attention is paid to countering an air attack and repelling subversive and reconnaissance groups," the ministry’s press office said in a statement.

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Russian official says it is impossible to intercept Yars missile with existing systems

During the drills, the missile troops will perform a march to a distance of up to 100 km and practice the tasks of equipping and camouflaging field positions.

Overall, the drills involve more than 300 items of military hardware, including such latest models as the Listva remote-controlled mine-clearing vehicle, the Taifun-M combat anti-saboteur vehicle, a wheeled road vehicle and the ARS-14KM decontamination and degassing station.

The RS-24 Yars is a Russian strategic missile system comprising a mobile or silo-based solid-propellant intercontinental ballistic missile with MIRVed (multiple independently targetable vehicle) warheads. The ICBM was developed by the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology under the supervision of Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Yuri Solomonov. The Yars is a modification of the Topol-M missile system.

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