On September 9, 2016 the Strategic Rocket Forces conducted a successful launch of a Topol/SS-25 ICBM from the Plesetsk test site. According to the Ministry of Defense statement (on Facebook!), the warhead reached its designated target at the Kamchatka Peninsula. The launch was part of a Strategic Rocket Forces exercise.

One of the objectives of the test, along with "confirmation of the technical characteristics of the missile," was a test of prospective combat payload and missile defense penetration aids." This is somewhat unusual, for normally tests of this kind are conducted along the Kapustin Yar-Sary Shagan corridor (the most recent one took place in December 2015).