This is something that we don’t want to see our heads go over this Monday evening. According to Ukrainian military intelligence servicesRussia will put into service on the night of Monday 18 to Tuesday May 19 Intercontinental ballistic missile Yars RS-24. A training launch planned near the village of Svobodny, about 100 km northeast of Ekaterinburg.
But what exactly is it? The Yars RS-24, which can also be called SS-27 Mod 2 according to the name of NATO, is An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) Because it has a range of more than 10,000 km.
“Intimide the EU and NATO”
Put into service at the end of 2009 after a first test shot in May 2007, it is one of the most powerful weapons in the Russian army. To nuclear capacityit has an explosive power equivalent to a million tonnes of trinitrotolène (TNT), 50 times higher than that used to shave Hiroshima in August 1945. A missile capable of destroying a city like Paris or New York.
Pride of the national arsenal, Moscow has put it forward several times in videos published on social networks by the Ministry of Defense, but also during national parades for May 9, 2022 in particular.
In detail, the Yars RS-24 is 22.5 m long for just over 2 m in diameter. Designed in a similar way to the ICBM SS-27 (Topol M), its little Russian brother, it is built from a 3-storey solid fuel propulsion system, according to data from American think tank CSIS. Considered MIRV, that is to say capable of taking on several combat warheads-3 in this case-it is multicible in addition to claiming a range up to 12,000 km.
But then why consider a training shot while Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin must speak on the phone this Monday for negotiations around a cease-fire? kyiv’s military intelligence services denounce “a technique to intimidate Ukraine and the EU and NATO member states”. This is called nuclear deterrence.
