Russia says it has successfully carried out a test launch of a missile capable of carrying nukes for the second time in 10 days.
The country’s defense ministry launched an RS-24 Yars intercontinental ballistic missile from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome, north of Moscow, on Wednesday.
Officials said the missile successfully hit a target 3,600 miles away on the Kura testing range with dud warheads.
Russia carried out its second successful test of an ICBM in 10 days on Wednesday after launching an RS-24 Yars rocket from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome
Video of the launch shows a mobile launcher being erected before the missile is fired into the sky.
A statement from the defense ministry said: ‘At the experimental space site Plesetsk a combat crew of the Yoshkar-Ola missile unit carried out a test launch of the solid propellant mobile-based intercontinental missile (ICBM) RS-24 Yars with a multiple re-entry vehicle.
‘The warheads reached the designated area at the Kura proving ground in the Kamchatka Peninsula. All tasks have been coped with in full.’
Russia said the purpose of the test was to reaffirm the reliability of the missile, which was first deployed in 2010, it said.
Its statement is almost identical to those put out by the US military after testing its own Minutemen ICBM missiles.
The ICBM test comes after America tested two of its own Minutemen III missiles earlier this year, and amid multiple tests by North Korea of its new Hwasong-14 missile, which it claims is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.
The country’s defense ministry said the missile traveled more than 3,600 miles before striking a target in the Kura testing range, in the country’s far east
The launch came after America test-fired two of its Minuteman III missiles earlier this year, and amid multiple tests of what North Korea claims is a nuclear-capable ICBM
The RS-24 Yars is an upgrade from the TOPOL-M class missile which was introduced in 1997 and was Russia’s first upgrade of the TOPOL rockets developed during the Cold War.
It weights around 50 tons, measures 20m long and can be launched from a ground silo or mobile vehicle.
The three-stage, solid fuel rocket is capable of traveling up to 7,500 miles and carrying at least six nuclear warheads that can be independently targeted, according to Military Today.
Yars missiles can be maneuvered in flight to avoid defense systems, while deploying decoys to throw off any incoming rockets.
Once outside the earth’s atmosphere, a re-entry vehicle rains the nuclear warheads down to earth with yet more decoys to stop them being destroyed.
The RS-24 Yars (pictured inside a mobile launch system) is capable of carrying at least six nuclear warheads which can be fired at different targets and can dodge defenses
The test came at the official end of the Zapad 2017 war games which have seen thousands of Russian troops and hundreds of vehicles put on a fearsome display of strength in eastern Europe.
NATO chiefs had feared the games could be a cover-up for a Russian attack on Baltic states after a lack of transparency by Moscow around troop numbers.
Observers will be watching closely to see whether the soldiers, who could number up to 100,000, are moved back into Russia now the games have ended.
Zapad also did not pass as smoothly as Russia would have liked after two attack helicopters accidentally fired at two bystanders, leaving them seriously injured.