Russia tests missile which 'penetrates any defence'

Russia tested new strategic and tactical missiles yesterday, flexing its muscles amid military disputes with the West and bitter opposition to a US plan for a defensive shield in Europe.

The First Deputy Prime Minister, Sergei Ivanov, said Russia tested an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple independent warheads and a tactical cruise missile with an increased range, boasting that the weapons can penetrate any missile defence system.

"As of today, Russia has new tactical and strategic complexes that are capable of overcoming any existing or future missile defence systems," Mr Ivanov said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency. "So in terms of defence and security, Russians can look calmly to the country's future."

The missile, called the RS-24, was fired from a mobile launcher at the Plesetsk launch site in north-west Russia. Its test warhead landed on target about 3,400 miles away, the Strategic Missile Forces said.

President Vladimir Putin and Mr Ivanov have said repeatedly that Russia would continue to improve its nuclear arsenal and respond to US plans to deploy a missile defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Russia has bristled over the plans, vocally dismissing US assertions that the system would be aimed at blocking possible attacks by Iran and saying it would destroy the strategic balance of forces in Europe.

"We consider it harmful and dangerous to turn Europe into a powder keg and to fill it with new kinds of weapons," Mr Putin said yesterday at a news conference with the Portuguese Prime Minister, José Socrates.

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