Speaking in the State Duma today, Sergey Ivanov, the defense minister, mentioned some details of the 2007-2015 armament program.

Ivanov was reported as saying that by 2015 the Rocket Forces will receive "tens of silo-based missiles and more than 50 road-mobile ones". This is generally consistent with the earlier reports of 69 new Topol-M missiles by 2015, although it would be great if the information about the plans were more specific. Given that by the end of 2006 the Rocket Forces had 42 silo-based Topol-Ms and three mobile ones, earlier projection of about 100 Topol-Ms by 2015 seems about right, even though it appears to look more like 110 or even 120 missiles now - 60+ in silos and 50+ in garages.

The defense minister mentioned the plan to have eight new Project 955 class submarines by 2015. This sounds theoretically possible, but quite unrealistic in practice, especially given that the first submarine of this class, Yuri Dolgorukiy, is yet to begin sea trials and the development of Bulava missile encountered some problems.

According to Ivanov, by 2015 the number of strategic bombers will be reduced to 50 from the current 79. Apparently this will be done by withdrawing from service some of the Tu-95MS aircraft.