Russian military brass promises to re-equip all missile divisions with Yars by 2026

MOSCOW, November 13. /TASS/. All missile divisions that have mobile missiles will have been rearmed with Yars missile complexes by 2026, Commander of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces Col.Gen. Sergey Karakaev said in an interview with the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper.

"Mobile groups are also being reequipped with the Yars missile complex with a common missile. Overall, almost all missile divisions using mobile missile complexes are expected to be rearmed with this missile complex by 2026," Karakaev said.

The Teykovo, Nizhny Tagil and Novosibirsk units have already been rearmed, he said. "The Yars missile is quickly replacing the aged Topol in the Yoshkar-Ola and Irkutsk missile divisions," the colonel general specified.

He reiterated that stationary missile groups had been actively reequipped over the past five years. That said the troops of the Kozelsk missile division are receiving the Yars silo-based system.

The Yars missile complex

The Yars is a mobile or stationary missile complex with a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile containing a multiple warhead. It was designed in the 2000s by experts from the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology under the guidance of Chief Designer Yury Solomonov on the basis of the Topol-M missile complex.

Missiles for the complex are produced at the Votkinsky Zavod (town of Votkinsk, Udmurtia Region). Self-propelled launching vehicles and support vehicles are manufactured at the Titan-Barricades federal scientific and production center (Volgograd) with the use of wheeled chassis made by Volat (Minsk Wheel Tractor Plant, Belarus).

The first test launch was carried out on May 29, 2007, from the Plesetsk Range over the Kura Range (Kamchatka). The Yars missile deployment started in December 2009, when the complex started operating in the Russian Strategic Missile Forces on a combat-testing basis.