Russia Plans to Keep SS-18 ICBMs for at Least 10 More Years

Once scheduled to be destroyed under a strategic arms control agreement, Russia’s arsenal of 10-warhead SS-18 ICBMs will be kept in service for at least another 10 years, Strategic Missile Forces chief Col. Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov said yesterday (see GSN, Sept. 30).

The long-range ballistic missile “will serve Russia for another 10 to 15 years,” he said.

While Russia would have had to scrap its SS-18s, along with its six-warhead SS-19 ICBMs, under the U.S.-Russian START II Treaty, that pact never entered into force, according to the Associated Press. Instead, the U.S.-Russian Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, which took effect this year, allows both countries to determine which weapons systems to keep as long as each nation reduces the number of strategic nuclear warheads it deploys to less than 2,200 by 2012 (see GSN, Aug. 5; Associated Press/London Guardian, Dec. 17).

Back to top
About Newswire  |  Contact National Journal  |  Re-Use Guidelines © Copyright 2008 by National Journal Group, Inc. The material in this section is produced independently for NTI by National Journal Group, Inc. Any reproduction or retransmission, in whole or in part, is a violation of federal law and is strictly prohibited without the consent of the National Journal Group, Inc. All rights reserved.