Russia fired a long-range Topol missile from a launch site in northern Russia on Sunday. A Reuters witness said the truck mounted Topol was fired at 0723 GMT in drizzling rain from the Plesetsk cosmodrome, which is nestled among the forests of Russia's north. Before the launch, President Dmitry Medvedev personally inspected the RS-12M Topol, called the SS-25 Sickle by NATO, which has a maximum range of 10,000 km (6,125 miles) and can carry one 550-kiloton warhead. The rocket is set to hit the Kura testing site on the Kamchatka peninsula in the Pacific.
