Voice of Russia
December 18, 2013
Russia prepares response to US Prompt Global Strike program
Russia is preparing a possible response to the US Prompt Global Strike program by means of its Military Railroad Missile Complex. As expected, the work on the sketch project of the Military Railroad Missile Complex will be completed in the first half of 2014. The contractor is the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology. The development of the new complex is being carried out in response to the US Prompt Global Strike program. The matter concerns the possibility to hit hostile objects anywhere on the Earth within an hour after the decision declared by the US.
“The leadership of the Defense Ministry has presented a report to the Supreme Commander and set a goal to produce a schematic design of the Military Railroad Missile Complex in the framework of the State Defense Procurement. The deadline of the schematic design is the first half of 2014,” commander of the Strategic Missile Forces, Colonel General Sergey Karakayev said.
The new Military Railroad Missile Complex will be equipped with a solid-fuel multiple-warhead intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), created on the base of the ICBM Yars. “The matter concerns the modification of a number of missile weapons, which weighs 47 tons. For comparison, a rocket in the old Military Railroad Missile Complex weighed 110 tons,” Karakayev explained.
The commander noted that today, there was a possibility of disguising the complex like a refrigerator car, whose length was 24 meters, while the length of the missile was 22.5 meters.
“That is, it (the missile) is easily housed in a normal refrigerator car; there is no need to increase the number of axles of the car; the axle load is permissible and there is a possibility of choosing any route,” Karakayev said.
The USSR had already had the Military Railroad Missile Complex in its arsenal. In 2005, it was liquidated in connection with the Treaty on the reduction of strategic offensive arms (START), signed in January 1993 by presidents of the USA and Russia George Bush and Boris Yeltsin. Meanwhile, the current START-3 Treaty does not prohibit the creation of new missile systems, including the Military Railroad Missile Complex.
The work of Russian specialists on the railway missile train is coming to a close. On December 12, in his address to the Federal Assembly, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia would not allow military superiority over it. According to Putin, Russia possesses the potential necessary to respond to existing global challenges.
Voice of Russia, RIA, Interfax
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