The Russian forces have tested from the ground and from a submarine new intercontinental RS-24 missiles with a range of at least 7,000 kilometres, Interfax news agency reported Wednesday, according to DPA. The RS-24, presented for the first time earlier this year, had been fired from the northern Russian space station and military base Plessezk on Tuesday, it was said. It was the second test launch of an RS-24, which according to Russia is able carry several nuclear warheads at once and which cannot be hit by any defence system. Also on Tuesday, a Sineva missile was fired from the Barents Sea. The two missiles had struck a remote military training ground on the far-eastern Kamtshatka Peninsula with high precision, the report said. When the Sineva missile was fired in 2004 there had still been several glitches. However, Russia for several years now has been working more intensely on modernizing its nuclear weapons arsenal. In the recent election campaign, President Vladimir Putin announced "great plans" for the Russian nuclear weapons arsenal by 2015. According to Western military experts, however, the measures are unspectacular in an international context - in many cases a sabre- rattling response to the US missile defence plans for Central and Eastern Europe.
