The ministry of defense reports that the Rocket Forces installed another Avangard missile in a silo at the Dombarovskiy division.
Technically, the missile placed in the silo is not yet Avangard - it is an old UR-100NUTTH/SS-19 missile that serves as a booster of the hypersonic glider. The glider will be installed on the missile later. The video also appears to show last year's deployment in the silo at 51.1925 59.635278.
This suggests that the Rocket Forces are close to the goal of adding two new Avangard systems to the division in Dombarovskiy, even if they are not quite there yet. The plan is to complete the rearmament of the first regiment of six missiles in 2021 and to deploy a total of 12 missiles by the end of 2027.
The book
Comments
Pavel, do you have any idea as to what the yield of the Avangard warhead is? This goes back to a question I posed a number of years ago as to the current state of warhead development in Russia. The question is, other than the 550kt warhead specifically developed for the Topol-M in the 90's, has there been any new development or are all the "newer" warheads just re-packaging of earlier designs? For example; the rumor of a 2 megaton warhead for Avangard. It would make sense (if the yield is indeed ~2 MT) to use a previously tested warhead in that yield range. I do find it odd how secretive Russia is regarding its nuclear weapon yields in comparison to the US. There is certainly no strategic advantage in doing so.
Most warhead yield numbers are speculations. I wouldn't trust the 550 kt for Topol-M, for example. Some data is available, but not very much http://russianforces.org/blog/2007/05/how_many_warheads.shtml
From personal experience on other cases, I can confirm that publicly available data on warhead yields, especially modern ones, is highly inaccurate (and, depending on cases, can be in both ways, up or down...)
A realistic approach I would suggest is to assess modern weapons'yields based on warhead dimensions & weight, if known with reasonable accuracy, and refer to available yield assessments of older warheads (70's to 90's, including US RU UK FR weapons) with similar characteristics, which are likely to be much more reliable. Even that way, no more than a 50% accuracy in yield assessment is to be expected in my opinion, which is enough anyway regarding a general assessment of military effects in most cases.
Regards