Russia Puts Nuclear ICBM That is 10X Stronger than those Dropped on Japan on Combat Duty

Russia’s defense ministry confirmed that the Yars intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) has been loaded into a silo at the Kozelsk missile complex in the Kaluga Region in central Russia.

"This operation is important, because it will allow a yet another ICBM to enter the combat duty as scheduled," Commander of the Kozelsk missile formation Alexey Sokolov said.

Russia is displaying its nuclear weapons ahead of the annual Strategic Missile Forces Day on December 17.

President Vladimir Putin drew international attention on December 9 when he warned that if even one missile enters Russian territory, "hundreds" of warheads will respond.

“I assure you, after the early warning system receives a signal of a missile attack, hundreds of our missiles are in the air," Putin said from a summit in Kyrgyzstan, Russian news outlet RIA reported. "It is impossible to stop them."

The Yars missile was installed in the silo using a specialized transport and loading unit during an operation that lasted several hours.

Yars reportedly has a carrying capacity 12 times more than the American atomic bomb that decimated Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945.

The ICBM was placed in a silo launch pad utilizing a special transport and loading unit. The RS-24 Yars is an upgraded version of the previous Topol-MR. The two missiles are identical, except that the payload “bus” has been upgraded to carry MIRV (multiple independently targetable warheads).

The missile has launch weight of 46,000 tonnes, and an operational range of up to 12,000km that can strike the U.S. or anywhere in Europe, and a payload of up to 500 kilotons.

The Moscow Institute of Thermal Engineering developed the SS-29, as it is known in the West, which had its first testing in 2007. 

It can be ready for launch in seven minutes and fire from a prepared location, a customized garage with a sliding roof, or an unprepared position during field deployment, reports say.

In a conventional MIRV configuration, the missile contains all the warheads in a single stage that separates from the rest of the weapon after launch. Once beyond the Earth’s atmosphere, this unit may navigate independently, releasing each warhead over a single target.

Russia claimed to have tested the RS-24 Yars in June 2019 using an “experimental warhead” design. The missile traveled nearly 3,500 miles during the test before striking the Kura Missile Test Range in Kamchatka Kra on the other side of Russia.