The Chief of General Staff, Yuri Baluyevski, speaking in the Duma today outlined the long-term plans for the strategic forces. He said that ten year from now, in 2016, the strategic fleet will be "completely re-armed" with Project 955 submarines and Bulava missiles. I'm wondering if this means that all Project 667BDRM/Delta IV submarines will be retired by that time. Looks like it does.

As for the land-based ICBM force, Baluyevski stated again that after 2016 Topol-M will be the only missile system deployed. We know that R-36M2/SS-18 missiles will be retired by then. But the question remains, what happened to the idea of keeping the "Ukrainian" SS-19 missiles?