MOSCOW, December 19. /TASS/. Russia’s Strategic Missile Force continues to expand and upgrade its capabilities in line with 2023 goals, Russian Strategic Missile Force Commander Colonel General Sergey Karakayev told journalists.

He noted that the Strategic Missile Force, "fulfilling its 2023 tasks, continues to increase its grouping." According to Karakayev, all this year’s scheduled combat training exercises have been completed. "Missile troops have fully completed the drills and exercises of the highest degree of combat readiness. Thus, the tasks set for this year have been generally completed. The share of modern weapons will amount to 88% by the end of the year. The tasks for next year have been set, all events have been planned. We will begin fulfilling them," he said.

"As for the Avangard system with a gliding re-entry vehicle, this year we are completing the deployment of another missile regiment to the Dombarovsky missile formation in the Orenburg Region," the commander said.

"Touching upon the new Yars mobile ground-based missile systems, this year a regiment in the Bologovskoye missile formation entered combat alert duty. And with this regiment, we are finishing rearming the Topol group. Today, the Topol missile complex is already history. As for the silo-based group, while fine-tuning this group, we increased the number of missile complexes in the Kozelsky missile formation in the Kaluga Region entering combat alert duty," Karakayev said.