Russia's Strategic Missile Forces receive new ICBMs

Russia's Strategic Missile Forces (RVSN) are being re-equipped with new intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), the force's commander, Colonel General Sergey Karakaev, told the Krasnaya Zvezda ( Red Star ) military newspaper on 17 December.

“We plan to place four regiments on duty in 2022. They include a regiment of the Uzhur missile formation armed with Sarmat missiles, one new regiment of the Yasnensky formation armed with Avangard, and missile regiments in the Tambov and Kirov regions armed with mobile Yars launchers,” he said.

The Kozelsk formation will place a silo-based Yars missile system in service, while the Barnaul formation will do so with mobile Yars by the end of 2021, Col Gen Karakaev said.

A new mobile ground launcher and new systems to penetrate missile defences are being designed for the Avangard hypersonic re-entry vehicle.

“The United States continues to develop missile defence in Europe, which can pose a threat to the ICBMs deployed in the European part of the country. To neutralise threats, the Strategic Missile Forces have designed and developed countermeasures. New missiles are obligatorily equipped to counter missile defence,” he said. “We can definitely say that the Avangard missile with a hypersonic re-entry vehicle is invulnerable to existing and planned missile defence.”

Russia plans to test-fire 10 ICBMs, mostly new systems, in 2022.

The strategic forces conducted more than 25 ICBM launches in the last five years to confirm the performance of missiles in service and to test new systems.