In an interview with Krasnaya Zvezda the commander of the Strategic Rocket Forces said that the first regiment of silo-based Yars missiles at the Tatishchevo division began combat duty in 2025.

The Tatishchevo division has an interesting history. Yars would be the fourth ICBM deployed there. Until recently it included Topol-M missiles that were first deployed there in December 1997.

It is not immediately clear if Yars missiles are replacing Topol-Ms. The Tatishchevo division had 12 regiments with 120 silos at its height. At the time of the START initial exchange in 1990, it had 110 SS-19/UR-100UTTH missiles and 10 SS-24/RT-23. According to START data, the first 20 Topol-M missiles were deployed in SS-19 silos, but in 2001-2002 all RT-23 had been removed and their silos were used for Topol-Ms (that's what's in the START data). After that, Topol-Ms were gradually replacing UR-100NUTTH, but by the time START ended in 2009, the division still had 70 UR-100NUTTH silos (but only 50 missiles in them) and 50 Topol-M. Around that time, two regiments of the division were disbanded and their silos have been abandoned (as can be seen on satellite imagery today).

According to FAS, the deployment of Topol-M in Tatishchevo was completed in 2012, with 60 missiles deployed by the end of that year. In 2015, it was reported that 70 Topol-M missiles were deployed, but as the discussion in comments there suggests, there are doubts about this information. Another reason to doubt the seventh regiment is that by that time the deployment of silo-based Yars had already begun - the first two missiles were deployed in Kozelsk in August 2014 (the first mobile Yars were deployed earlier, in 2010). It's highly unlikely that Russia would continue deploying Topol-M once it had an option to deploy Yars.

This means, however, that the division had 40 spare silos that were left by UR-100NUTTH (which appear to have been removed from service by 2019, despite occasional reports about life extension - in 2020 and in 2025). Satellite imagery suggests that these silos have been maintained all these years, so it seems possible that it is these silos that are used for Yars deployment, rather than those used to deploy Topol-M.

It's difficult to say if this is the case. Satellite images show that some silos are undergoing intensive modification, which appears to have started after September 2024 and was underway in August 2025 (see the image above for 51.806998, 45.656520 and also 51.801489, 45.748928). Without good historic imagery, it is hard to tell whether this regiment was converted to Topol-M in the 2000s. Silos of another regiment were - for example, one can see that in 2004 the construction was underway at these two silos - 51.495902, 45.463064 and 51.493444, 45.566581. Presumably other silos of that regiment underwent Topol-M modernization too.

The first Topol-M missiles, which were deployed in Tatishchevo in 1997, are not yet 30 years old, which is what the service life of an earlier SS-25/Topol missile ended up to be. The last Topol missiles were deployed around 1992 and all had been retired by 2023. In 2014, there were reports about its life being extended to 26 years, but apparently it was extended to 30. So, it is probably too early to remove Topol-M from service.

So, it seems likely that Yars missiles in Tatishchevo are not replacing Topol-Ms but rather are deployed in (modified) silos that were left by SS-19/UR-100NUTTH when they were withdrawn from service.

It is also worth noting that the new construction that we can see at Tatishchevo did not begin until about September 2024. The imagery available at Google Earth, where available, shows that in August 2025 it was still rather far from being completed. So, it's likely that the first Yars regiment in Tatishchevo does not have the full complement of missiles yet.

Note: The earlier version of this post suggested that Yars is replacing Topol-M missiles. It's been updated to describe the uncertainty about the replacement.