Russia said it had successfully test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Tuesday, with tensions high over its seizure of control in the Crimea and its threat to send more forces into neighboring Ukraine.
The Strategic Rocket Forces launched an RS-12M Topol missile from the southerly Astrakhan region and the dummy warhead hit its target at a proving ground in Kazakhstan, Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Yegorov told state-run news agency RIA.
The launch site, Kapustin Yar, is near the Volga River about 280 miles east of the Ukrainian border. Kazakhstan, a Russian ally in a post-Soviet security grouping, is farther to the east.
A US official said the United States had received proper notification from Russia ahead of the test and that the initial notification pre-dated the crisis in Crimea.
Russia conducts test launches of its ICBMs fairly frequently and often announces the results, a practice seen as intended to remind the West of Moscow’s nuclear might and reassure Russians that President Vladimir Putin will protect them.
Russia and the United States signed the latest in a series of treaties restricting the numbers of ICBMs in 2010, but Moscow has indicated it will agree to further cuts in the near future and is taking steps to upgrade its nuclear arsenal.
Putin has emphasized that Russia must maintain a strong nuclear deterrent, in part because of an anti-missile shield the United States is building in Europe which Moscow says could undermine its security.
The 60-foot-long RS-12M, known in NATO parlance as the SS-25 Sickle, was first put into service in 1985, six years before the collapse of the Soviet Union, and is designed to carry a nuclear warhead. Its range is 6,000 miles.