Russia deploys RS-24 Yars intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM); Pakistan successfully tests one more nuclear nuclear-capable missile
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    • According to reports, Russia's new RS-24 Yars intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) was put on combat duty for the first time with the Teikovo missile regiment in the Ivanovskaya Oblast in Central Russia on 4 March. RS-24 is a missile that is heavier than the current Topol M (which can carry up to 10 independently targetable warheads) and is claimed by Russian government as being designed to defeat present and potential anti-missile systems. According to Youri Solomonov, head of the Moscow Institute for Thermal Technology, it is a Russian MIRV-equipped, thermonuclear intercontinental ballistic missile that is capable of "penetrating highly protected targets", as well as any current ballistic missile defence (BMD) system.1

    However, in another development, Pakistan on Friday successfully test-fired the short-range surface-to-surface nuclear-capable Hataf-II or Abdali missile, which has a range of 180 km, the military said. The missile can carry nuclear and conventional warheads with "high accuracy", it said. Speaking on the occasion, Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Chairman Gen Shamim Hyder Wynne said, the test "will go a long way in consolidating Pakistan's strategic deterrence capability and further strengthening national security". In the hierarchy of military operations, the Abdali missile system provides Pakistan an "operational level capability" that is in addition to the strategic capability the country already possesses through its medium-range and long-range ballistic missiles, he said. 2

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