Russia carried out the first test launch on Saturday of a strategic missile that reached the equator in the Pacific Ocean, a navy spokesman said. The spokesman said the Sineva missile was launched from the nuclear-powered submarine, Tula, based in the Arctic Barents Sea during military exercises observed by President Dmitry Medvedev. "For the first time in the history of the Russian Navy the target of the missile was in an equatorial part of the Pacific Ocean rather than the Kura testing ground on the Kamchatka Peninsula," he was quoted as saying by Reuters.
