Russia Conducts Test Flight of RS-24 YARS ICBM From Plesetsk

December 27, 2014

Russia test fires Yars intercontinental ballistic missile — Defense Ministry

The missile’s dummy warheads were fired from the Plesetsk military cosmodrome and hit a target at the Kura range in Kamchatka in the Russian Far East

MOSCOW, December 26. /TASS/. Russia’s intercontinental ballistic missile RS-24 Yars has been test fired from the Plesetsk military cosmodrome in the country’s northwest, Russian Defense Ministry’s spokesman for the Strategic Missile Forces (RVSN) Colonel Igor Yegorov told TASS on Friday.

The missile’s dummy warheads with given accuracy hit a target at the Kura range in Kamchatka in the Russian Far East.

“On December 26, 2014 at 11:02 am, Moscow time, the solid-propellant RS-24 Yars mobile ground ICBM with a multiple warhead was test fired from the Plesetsk state test cosmodrome by a combined combat crew of the RVSN and Aerospace Defense Forces,” the official said.

According to Yegorov, the main goals of Friday’s launch were to confirm operational reliability of missiles of the RS-24 Yars system that have been made in 2013 and 2014, as well as to confirm the combat and performance characteristics of the system itself.

Russia’s RVSN are being rearmed with the Yars systems with the RS-24 ICBM that will make the backbone of the ground group of solid-propellant missiles of Russia’s strategic nuclear forces. Yegorov said that commissioning of the RS-24 ICBM with a multiple re-entry vehicle has boosted the RVSN main strike group’s missile penetration capability.