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Russia reveals new missile
RUSSIA revealed today it was fitting its strategic bombers with cruise missiles capable of delivering a massive precision strike thousands of miles away - giving away the first clear hint of its post-Cold War military strategy. "Russia's long-range air force finally has a new weapon," the government's Rossiyskaya Gazeta daily announced in a headline. "We now have a strategic cruise missile with a non-nuclear warhead," the paper wrote. "We have broken the US monopoly on the use long-range conventional cruise missiles," an unnamed senior air force commander told ITAR-TASS.The technology appears to be similar to cruise missiles that the US has long attached to its own intercontinental bombers like the B-2 Stealth bomber. The announcement followed months of cryptic statements from President Vladimir Putin and his top generals that Russia was developing a new missile program that is a step ahead of any Western rivals - including technology developed by the US. Mr Putin declared last month that Russia had "conducted tests of the latest nuclear rocket systems" in a cryptic comment that puzzled military strategists but seemed aimed at Washington and its mooted missile defence shield that Moscow considers illegal. Russia has been developing a range of new missiles capable of penetrating US defences as a result. Generals announced earlier this year the successful tests of a hypersonic intercontinental missile that has no officially-confirmed rival in the US. Moscow is also believed to be developing a multi-stage intercontinental ballistic missile that uses cruise missile technology to zigzag and avoid being shot down once it re-enters the earth's atmosphere. Russia also announced that it was making its most feared and powerful trans-Atlantic missile mobile within the next two years. But the latest technology announced today would see old Soviet-era conventional missiles be carried by strategic bombers with a global range. Posted by: 2004-12-06 |
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