Commander of the Strategic Rocket Forces, Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov, was reported as saying that his service is going to deploy seven new Topol-M missiles this year - four silo-based and three mobile. This is a bit different from the earlier plan that called for deployment of only five missiles. At this point it is not clear when and why the plans were changed (or if they were, for that matter).
Another puzzling number reported by Izvestia (although it is not clear if that was something that Solovtsov said) is that the Tatishchevo division has 44 silo-based Topol-M missiles. This is strange - in July 2006 it had 42 and three more missiles were on their way there. There have been no reports of any of these missiles being deployed, so I assumed that they haven't. It is, of course, possible that the missiles were put in silos without great fanfare, but then the question is, why only two of them? I hope that the START MOU data will clarify the situation.
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January 2007 MOU for Russia lists 44 "RS-12M Variant 2 for silos" deployed in Tatischevo plus three non-deployed missiles (see footnote 1 to Annex 1). So perhaps of those three missiles "being on their way" in October they might have deployed two and kept one somewhere? Additionally, ARMS-TASS also mentions 44 missiles in December.
PS I can e-mail a Jan 2007 MOU to you, if you want. Our library got it a few days ago.
Thank you. It looks like the three missiles got stuck in Khrizolitovyy for some reason. I should get the MOU next week, but if you could send me a copy that would be great.
No problem. Sent it to the @stanford.edu
This have a fairly simple explanation. During 2005, the “jump” supposedly should have been from 40 to 44 missiles. It don’t happened. It was from 40 to 42. Afterward during 2006, 3 mobile Topol-m plus the 2 “2005 vintage” silo based Topol-m were deployed. The 3 “2006 vintage” are on a slow voyage to Saratov and eventually will be deployed this year.
"Russia will build their strategic armaments up, to answer on US Missile Defence Program", Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin declare.
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