New Nuclear Missiles to Be Deployed in Kozelsk

One of Russia’s missile regiments has currently entered into another stage of its rearming process that took into account replacing old ballistic missiles capable of reaching U.S. targets with the new silo-based Yars, Russian Defense Ministry has informed. Nonetheless, due to some delays, the project does not proceed as planned. Yet there are reportedly related to slow infrastructural development, thus having nothing to do with missile manufacturing.

SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA.ORG

Russia’s Defense Ministry informed that the first Yars missiles entered combat duty. Interestingly enough, the army had informed some three years later that the division was on the active list. According to the most feasible scenario, the regiment was expected to be fully operational in 2015 yet wielding only six missiles. Once the army was equipped with another two pairs of missiles, it managed to assume full combat readiness. Even though, the regiment will have to face serious delays, especially bearing in mind that they received a pair of missiles per year. And yet the Kozelsk regiment was set to be fully armed in 2017. Nonetheless, reasons for such suspension remain unknown while according to some, they may be closely linked to delays in the construction of missile silos. Problems related to the delivery to the Yars missiles constitute yet another example of holdbacks in schedules for updating Russian nuclear arsenal, as exemplified by the case of the Bulava and Sarmat ballistics.

The Kozelsk regiment is the first division of Russia’s Strategic Missile Force to be equipped with the Yars system. Previously, that is since 1982, the Kozelsk regiments disposed of the UR-100N missile (NATO codename: SS-19 Stiletto). The first pair of the Yars ballistics was deployed to the regiment in 2014; as previously announced by the Commander of Russia’s Strategic Missile Force Sergey Karakayev, the Yars ICBMs will be delivered to four missile regiments in the Kozelsk, Yoshkar-Ola, Novosibirsk and Irkutsk divisions. The solid-fuel RS-24 Yars is an intercontinental ballistic missile is ejected from an underground silo. It has a maximum range of 11,000 kilometers being capable of carrying up to 6 independent nuclear warheads. The first such missiles entered into combat duty in 2010. The brand-new ICBMs are supposed to replace its older counterparts: SS-19 and SS-18 Satan. The Yars missiles will constitute the very core of Russia’s nuclear land forces until 2050.

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