MOSCOW, February 27. /TASS/. A column of Yars road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) systems has conducted a march from the Ivanovo Region to a training ground near Moscow to prepare for the May 9 Victory Day Parade, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Tuesday.
"As part of preparations for the military parade on Red Square, a mechanized column of Yars road-mobile missile launchers has conducted a march from their permanent deployment site in the Ivanovo Region to Alabino in the Moscow Region," the ministry said in a statement.
The mechanized column conducted its 400 km march across the Ivanovo, Vladimir and Moscow Regions, federal highway M7 and the Moscow Automobile Ring Road, it said.
During the preparations for the military parade on Moscow’s Red Square, the missile formation in the Ivanovo Region carried out training and qualification tests with the crews of the Strategic Missile Force’s parade team, the ministry reported.
"After reviewing the tests involving special training and the driving of Yars road-mobile missile launchers in a column at an autodrome, the commission of the Strategic Missile Force’s military command and the Vladimir missile formation made a decision to admit the personnel to their participation in the preparations for the parade," it said.
The personnel and military equipment from the Teikovo missile formation in the Ivanovo Region has been participating in military parades on Moscow’s Red Square since 2008.
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 Yars is a modification of the Topol-M missile system. Russia started deploying Yars ICBM systems in 2009 when the Yars launcher was accepted for experimental combat duty in the Strategic Missile Force.