MOSCOW, 11 December 2004 — Moscow revealed the first hints of its secretive new nuclear weapons priorities yesterday with a top Russian general saying that a new generation of strategic missiles would soon be mobile on land — and that this was far from the only thing that Moscow had in store.
President Vladimir Putin put the world on alert last month with an announcement that Russia has conducted tests on new nuclear systems and that they had so far gone according to plan. But he gave no further details.
Putin’s defense chiefs said separately that Russia was also equipping its nuclear bombers with massive conventional cruise missiles — just like the United States has done for years — and that a pre-emptive “anti-terror” strike could be made any time anywhere in the world.
Western states have scrambled for clarification of Moscow’s cryptic and mixed messages — all delivered in a steady sequence amid a geopolitical confrontation over the new leadership of Ukraine.
But some Russian military secrets were opened yesterday by Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov, the head of Russia’s nuclear force, who said Putin primarily meant that Moscow within the next few years would deploy land-mobile strategic nuclear missiles for the first time.
“He was talking about the mobile Topol-M,” Solovtsov said of Russia’s latest nuclear threat.
The missiles have been developed in a Moscow laboratory and are comparable to the feared Minuteman weapon from the United States. “But this was not the only thing that he was talking about,” the general added. “We are developing some other things as well,” he said while refusing to give further details. “And yes, these will be different things from what anyone else has,” he said with a smile.
Solovtsov said Russia would not have any land-mobile strategic nuclear weapons in 2005 — as had been originally promised — but would deploy at least three by 2006. “From then on, we will get from six to nine rockets a year,” he said.
Putin frequently announces new advances in public while the military complains in private of a lack of money and a fast reduction of available rockets and missile troops. The general confirmed for the first time that Russia will have to scrap its railroad missile system within a matter of months because the main components are built in Ukraine — which has scrapped its nuclear program.
“We are not likely to see such a thing again in our lifetime,” Solovtsov said. But Solovtsov said the Russian Army, short on cash but powerful on technology, would rely on its nuclear force for years to come despite agreements with Washington to warhead limits.
Meanwhile analysts suggest that Russia is also in the latter stages of developing a hypersonic missile along with one that works as a cruise missile once re-entering the earth’s orbit to avoid rockets that could shoot it down. None of this technology is officially acknowledged as being available in the United States.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said separately yesterday that Moscow would defend its border and national interests, opening up the possibility of preventive strikes on suspected terror bases while ruling out use of nuclear weaponry in doing so.
“Russia,” he said, “is far from being the only country to announce its readiness to carry out preventive strikes on terrorist bases.”
“We do not rule out the possibility of carrying out preventive strikes on terrorist bases at any location in the world,” Ivanov said. But he added: “The only limit is exclusion of strikes with nuclear weapons.”
Meanwhile, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and Putin met in the Kremlin yesterday to synchronize efforts in the war on terrorism.
“We are concerned by the attempts by terrorists to use attacks to influence the political situation in different countries,” Putin said after the consultations, referring to the Madrid train bombings that killed 200 people on the eve of Spanish general elections.
But he rejected speculation that Russia had frowned upon Spain’s subsequent decision after Zapatero’s election to withdraw its troops from Iraq. “Russia’s position toward the military operation in Iraq was always negative,” Putin said. “We never recommended to anyone including the Spanish government to send troops to Iraq, and naturally did not object to the withdrawal of the Spanish contingent.”
Zapatero, in turn, stressed the need to restore Iraq’s sovereignty: “The world needs a stable Iraq, and it needs a democratically elected Iraqi government”
Little was said about specific measures to coordinate the countries’ anti-terrorism measures.
Putin also said Russia would be “pleased” to see Ukraine join the European Union if it so desired and were invited to do so. “If Ukraine wants to enter the EU and is welcomed there, then we can only be pleased,” Putin told reporters at the Kremlin following talks with Zapatero.
