Last night, President Putin allegedly launched a “new intercontinental ballistic missile” at Kazakhstan, striking a target at a firing range.
The enigmatic rocket’s full specifications were initially withheld, but experts concur that it is a potent Topol-ME system.
It was launched from the Astrakhan-area Kapustrin Yar test site and struck the Sary-Shagan range in neighboring Kazakhstan.
A spectacular video shows the late night launch as Russians today mark the 62nd anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s blastoff in Vostok 1 to be the first man in space.
It came amid the war in Ukraine and as US President Joe Biden landed in Northern Ireland.
In an official statement, the Russian defence ministry said: ‘The combat crew of the Strategic Missile Troops successfully launched a intercontinental ballistic missile of the land-based mobile missile system from the Kapustin Yar State Central Training Ground in the Astrakhan Region.’
The launch was aimed at ‘testing the advanced military supply of intercontinental ballistic missiles’, reported TASS citing the ministry.
‘The launch permitted proving that design and engineering solutions used in the development of new strategic missile complexes are correct,’ said the ministry.
The exercise head hit a ‘hypothetical target’ at Sary-Shagan which Russia uses under agreement with Kazakhstan.
‘The launch fully dispatched its mission,’ said the ministry.
Outlet Military Russia and others indicated the launch was a test ‘apparently for the first time’…of advanced combat equipment 15Zh55ME Topol-ME also known as Yars-E.
The rocket can be unleashed from a mobile launcher, it stated.
A Topol-ME launch from Kapustrin Yar had been predicted for this year.
It is believed to be a development of the old Topol system.
The new development ‘will solve the issue of the expiration of Topol missiles, which were previously used for such test launches, and will also allow the payload to be launched on a platform unified with many modern missiles.’
Russia is also due to carry out more tests with its hypersonic Sarmat rocket, known in the West as Satan-2, which appears subject to mysterious delays in an humiliation for after a failure to meet a deployment deadline at the end of 2022.
Some reports have suggested a failed test launch of Sarmat in February.
The Satan-2 rocket is the size of a 14 storey tower block weighing 208 tons which is capable of delivering multiple nuclear warheads.
Five test launches of Satan-2 have been predicted for this year.
In May, former head of Roscosmos Dmitry Rogozin, seen as a close Putin ally, said almost 50 Satan-2 missiles, which were in mass production, would soon be on combat duty.
In early June, a major ICBM test was scheduled and locals near the Kura test range were warned to stay clear of the target site in remote Kamchatka. But the test never happened.
In June last year Rogozin boasted: ‘We are absolutely on schedule, we are now preparing for the second flight test of the Sarmat.’
The following month Rogozin was fired for unknown reasons with his promised new job yet to arrive.
His successor, ex-deputy premier Yury Borisov, in July repeated the claim that the missile is in mass production without evidently reiterating Putin’s goal of Satan-2 being on combat duty by December.
Defence analysts suspecting hypersonic hyperbole have pointed out that Russia’s R-36M2 Voevoda missile was tested no less than 17 times before it was put on combat duty.