Russia to Scrap Missile Trains by End of the Year

Russia plans to decommission all its nuclear missile trains by the end of the year, RIA Novosti reported yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 31).

“Unfortunately missiles grow old, just like people, and their guaranteed service life runs out. It is precisely because the missiles’ guaranteed service life has run out and cannot be extended (since series production was in Ukraine) that the removal from combat duty and scrapping of missile trains has been going on since 2001,” sources said.

“New systems of the Topol-M [missile] type, built in Russia, will replace the missile trains,” said Col.-Gen. Nikolay Solovtsov, commander in chief of the Strategic Missile Troops (RIA Novosti/BBC Monitoring, June 15).

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