- Russia successfully tested on Friday its two new Bulava intercontinental missiles, which experienced several failures in the past.

The Defence Ministry said the 12-meter-long Bulava, or Mace, which Moscow aims to make the cornerstone of its nuclear arsenal, was fired from a submarine in the Arctic White Sea and hit the target, a designated polygon, on Kamchatka peninsula in Russia’s far east.

“The launch was carried out from (the submarine in) submerged position in the White Sea,” ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov was quoted by state-run RIA news agency as saying. “Its warheads reached the polygon (target) on time.”

The missiles carry dummies rather than nuclear warheads as Russia is a signatory of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) which bans all nuclear explosions.

The Bulava had failed half of its previous trials, calling into question the expensive missile program. The previous launch in June from the same submarine was a success though.

A Bulava missile weighs 36.8 tonnes and can travel a distance of 8,000 km (5,000) miles carrying 6-10 nuclear warheads, which would deliver an impact of up to 100 times the atomic blast that devastated Hiroshima in 1945.  [Reuters]

During campaign season, it never hurts for a presidential candidate facing a frustrated public to display toughness and resolve in the face of an old and familiar adversary. And it also doesn’t hurt to throw in some shock-and-awe–say, a ballistic missile nicknamed “Satan.”

This appears to at least partly explain why on Monday Russia announced that it had successfully tested a short-range interceptor missile; part of its ongoing effort to develop a domestic missile defense system, according to Russia’s RIA News Agency. (The Russian Defense Ministry has provided a video of the missile’s launch on its website.) Russia also announced it is working on the development of a 100-ton ballistic missile slated for release in 2015, Pravda reports. Russia recently held contested parliamentary polls and is due to hold presidential elections in March. Russia watchers note the political backdrop to the announced plans and their part in the wider narrative agenda: resurgent Russia’s determined opposition to American missile defense plans in Eastern Europe.

“In connection with the plans of the United States to develop the air defense system in Europe, in close vicinity to Russia’s borders, and because of the unwillingness of the U.S.  side to provide any guarantees, the Russian Federation continues to take measures to preserve parity in the field,” Pravda reports.

“Russia does not stand against the U.S. missile defense system,” Sergei Karakaev, the Russian Defense Ministry commander of the missile troops, was cited by the paper. “Russia stands against the creation of the missile defense system, which would be directly aimed against Russia to potentially reduce the possibilities of the Russian nuclear containment forces.”  [The Envoy]

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday formally inaugurated a new missile alert radar station in the nation’s Baltic enclave and said the system was a strong response to U.S. plans to deploy a missile shield in Europe, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Nov. 28).

Medvedev allowed, though that the large radar site in the Kaliningrad region could be incorporated into NATO’s planned missile defense system if the sides can reach a deal to collaborate on the project.

“I hope that our partners will perceive this move as the first signal of our country’s readiness to respond in kind to the threats, which the missile defense system poses for our forces,” he said.

Russia has been engaged for a year in discussions with NATO and the United States regarding the missile shield. Moscow objects to Obama administration plans to over the course of the decade field increasingly advanced sea- and land-based missile interceptors around Europe as a declared bulwark against a feared ballistic missile attack from Iran. The Kremlin believes the interceptors would be aimed at Russia’s long-range nuclear missiles; Washington has repeatedly denied this claim.

Last week, the Russian president warned the Kremlin might pull out of the New START nuclear arms control pact with the United States and send Iskander missiles to the Kaliningrad territory, which abuts several NATO states, if a deal with the Western military bloc cannot be reached on missile defense. Negotiations have run aground over differing views about what cooperation should entail; Moscow favors a unified approach while NATO wants two independent but linked antimissile systems.

In addition, Russia wants a legally binding pledge that the missile shield will not be aimed at its strategic nuclear forces.

“We can’t be satisfied with oral assurances that the system isn’t aimed against Russia. Regrettably, such oral statements don’t guarantee the protection of our interests,” Medvedev said (Associated Press/New York Times, Nov. 29).

Washington-based issue specialists, however, said there is little chance the White House would cave to Russian demands on missile defense in Europe, the New York Times reported.  [Global Security Newswire]

You can read more at the link but I wonder what type of radar this is?

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev accused Washington on Thursday of imposing its plans to deploy a missile defence shield on European countries, a day after he threatened to retaliate if the United States pressed ahead with the project.

On Wednesday Medvedev said he would arm Russia with missiles capable of countering the U.S. shield, deploy additional weapons in the west and south and set up an early-warning radar system in its Baltic enclave to counteract the U.S. system, which is not expected to be fully in place until 2020.

“The construction of the European missile defence shield has been largely imposed (on Europe) by the United States,” he told regional reporters at a briefing in the northern town of Petrozavodsk, some 920 km (570 miles) north of Moscow.

He quoted unnamed European leaders who, he said, had complained to him that they had a minor role in the project.

“My partners…have hinted to me from time to time: “It is the Americans who decided that, they are promoting it, and our role as NATO member states is to provide territory,” he said.

Medvedev’s attempt to divide Washington and its NATO partners could irk European countries, especially Poland and Romania, former Soviet bloc states that had agreed, along with Spain, to house parts of the missile shield.

Russia’s ex-satellites are traditionally sensitive to Moscow belittling their authority.

Russia maintains that the U.S. missile defence system aims to weaken its nuclear deterrent and wants legally binding guarantees that the system will not be directed against it. Washington says the shield will be deployed against countries like Iran and is not a threat to Russia.

Medvedev, who together with his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama called for a ‘reset’ in relations less than three years ago to improve Russia’s ties with the West, has recently tended to echo Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s anti-western rhetoric.

His latest statements are widely seen as a way to please the domestic audience ahead of Dec. 4 parliamentary polls and the March 2012 presidential vote, which are expected to steer Putin back to the Kremlin and secure Medvedev the post of prime minister by agreement between the two men.  [Reuters]

Russian space forces commander Lt. Gen. Oleg Ostapenko on Tuesday said his nation and Ukraine are in discussions on a potential collaborative program to field ballistic missile defense technology, RIA Novosti reported (see GSN, Feb. 28).

“We are currently in talks with the Ukrainian side on jointly resolving missile defense objectives,” the military commander said without providing any other specifics.

However, Moscow has no interest in renewing its usage of Ukraine’s “obsolete” radars at Sevastopol and Mukacheve, he said (RIA Novosti, Oct. 4).

In February, former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Volodymyr Ohryzko said the country was interested in participating in NATO’s planned missile defense architecture even though Ukraine is not a member of the alliance. Ohryzko said the radar stations at Mukacheve and Sevastopol could be his government’s contribution to the missile shield, according to previous reports.

“These radar stations were built in the Soviet period. They cannot be used against Russia because they look the other way,” ITAR-Tass reported quoted Ostapenko as saying.

“These are totally obsolete radar stations, and it would be senseless to restore them,” the general said (ITAR-Tass, Oct. 4).

Moscow has voiced repeated worries that NATO’s missile shield would be secretly aimed at undermining Russian strategic nuclear forces.  [Global Security News]

You can read more at the link.

A contract on the delivery of advanced S-300 air defense systems to Iran has been stagnated by technical reasons, the Iranian ambassador to Russia said on Thursday, according to RIA Novosti.

Russia signed a contract with Iran on the supply of at least five S-300 air defense systems to Tehran in December 2005. However, there have been no official reports on the start of the contract’s implementation.

“Iran is ready to receive these systems and our Russian colleagues have assured us that they will meet their obligations,” Seyyed Mahmoud-Reza Sajjadi said at a news conference at RIA Novosti in Moscow.

“Several technical issues [in the contract's implementation] have emerged, and we hope they will be resolved soon,” the diplomat said without specifying the problems.

Many experts believe Moscow has refused so far to honor the S-300 contract due to pressure from Washington and Tel Aviv.  [Defence Pros]

The Russians this past year have also denied claims of selling the S-300 to Syria as well.

The Russian S-300 missile also known by the NATO designation of a SA-10 has a range of 150 kilometers and can destroy an aircraft at a maximum altitude of 30 kilometers.  It also has the ability to shoot down not only aircraft but ballistic missiles as well.  Its radar has the ability to simultaneously track 100 targets while being engage 12 of them at the same time.  The radars maximum range is that it can detect ballistic missiles out to 1000 kilometers and cruise missiles and aircraft up to 300 kilometers.

Vladimir Putin deliberately threw a wrench into U.S.-Russian negotiations over a follow-on to the START nuclear reductions treaty yesterday when he explicitly linked the issue to U.S. missile-defense plans.

But what’s not mentioned in these otherwise excellent articles by the New York Times’ Ellen Barry and the Washington Times’ Eli Lake on the development is that the prime minister’s comments directly contradict the July 6 joint statement of U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who made it clear that missile defense would be dealt with separately from the START follow-on talks.

Moreover, in their July 8 Joint Understanding, the carefully negotiated compromise was spelled out. The START follow-on would include “a provision on the interrelationship of strategic offensive and strategic defensive arms,” nothing more, nothing less. Multiple senior administration officials have told The Cable that this compromise was well understood to mean that missile defense would be delinked from the START negotiations — and that was the assumption the American team led by Rose Gottemoeller was working under.

Some on the Obama team are now suggesting they have already factored in these types of games coming from the Russian side.

“This is not unexpected and negotiations will resume in mid-January as we have said they would,” said an administration source familiar with where things stand.

So what’s going on? Well, there are two schools of thought among Russia experts. One is that Putin’s comments represent a clear difference between his view of U.S.-Russia relations and Medvedev’s. Medvedev, who is supposed to be in control of foreign policy, is more conciliatory and wants genuine rapprochement, the argument goes, whereas Putin … not so much.

Under this theory, there are two power structures in Moscow and they are jockeying for control. But even in this analysis, time and time again, Putin seems to win the day by making the final decision.

“Perhaps there is a power struggle, but if there is, it’s being overwhelmingly won and controlled by Putin’s faction,” said Alexandros Petersen, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. “Supposedly the idea was that Medvedev would tackle these types of issues. But then all the sudden Putin steps in and completely undermines him. Every time the going gets tough, Putin steps in and takes the reins.”

The competing theory is that Putin and Medvedev are working somewhat in lockstep, again with Putin calling the shots and benefiting from the illusion of a power split. For Putin, it’s useful to have Medvedev out there as the nice guy (aided by the fact that he may genuinely want to cooperate), setting up a good cop/bad cop routine. That catches Western officials off guard and makes it convenient for Putin because he can wait until negotiations with Medvedev play out and then make his move at the eleventh hour.

The bottom line is that the START talks now seem to be at an impasse. Since the administration doesn’t deal directly as much with Putin’s faction, resolving the dispute is problematic. And although the Obama team denies that its adjustment of plans to deploy missile defense to Poland and the Czech Republic was a concession to Russia, it would be a tough sell domestically to make any further concessions on missile defense and still get START ratified in the Senate.  [Foreign Policy]

Read the rest at the link, but like I said when the missile defense strategy in Eastern Europe was changed don’t expect cooperation from the Russians on other issues because of this change.  The Russians are likely probing the Obama administration to see what concessions they can get for them in return for cooperation on the President’s nuclear agenda.

Russia said Saturday it will scrap a plan to deploy missiles near Poland since Washington has dumped a planned missile shield in Eastern Europe. It also harshly criticized Iran’s president for new comments denying the Holocaust.

Neither move, however, represented ceding any significant ground. A plan to place Iskander missiles close to the Polish border was merely a threat. And while the Kremlin has previously criticized Tehran for questioning the reality of the Holocaust, Russian leaders have refused to back Western push for tougher sanctions against Iran.

It still remains unclear whether Moscow will make any significant concessions on Iran and other issues in response to President Barack Obama‘s move to scrap the Bush-era plan for U.S. missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic.  [Associated Press]

I doubt the Kremlin will make any concessions other then these cosmetic ones simply because the decision to modify the European missile defense strategy was one I believe largely based on still developing capabilities and budget constraints rather then some grand deal with the Russians.

President Barack Obama has decided to scrap plans for a U.S. missile defense shield in the Czech Republic and Poland that had deeply angered Russia, the Czech prime minister confirmed Thursday.

NATO’s new chief hailed the move as “a positive step” and a Russian analyst said Obama’s decision will increase the chances that Russia will cooperate more closely with the United States in the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program.

Premier Jan Fischer told reporters that Obama phoned him overnight to say that “his government is pulling out of plans to build a missile defense radar on Czech territory.”

“The same happened with Poland. Poland was informed in the same way about this intention,” Fischer said.

He said Obama assured him that the “strategic cooperation” between the Czech Republic and the U.S. would continue, and that Washington considers the Czechs among its closest allies.

In Poland, officials declined to confirm Fischer’s remarks, saying they were waiting for a formal announcement from Washington.

The plan, proposed by the Bush administration, aimed to defend the United States and its European allies against a possible missile attack from Iran or elsewhere in the Middle East. In all, 10 interceptor rockets were to have been stationed in Poland and a radar system based in the Czech Republic.  [Associated Press]

Russia’s arms-export monopoly on Monday denied Israeli claims that it plans to deliver S-300 surface-to-air missiles to Iran or Syria, the Interfax news agency reported.

“We have no information of this kind,” a spokesman for the state-owned firm, Rosoboronexport, said when asked about potential sales of the sophisticated anti-aircraft weapons to Tehran or Damascus.

The denial came as outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was due to arrive in Russia for a two-day visit in which concerns over Iran are expected to top the Israeli agenda.

His defence minister, Ehud Barak, on Sunday urged Russia not to upset the strategic balance in the Middle East with arms sales to Muslim countries.

Israeli media say the Jewish state is concerned by the possible sale of S-300s to Tehran, which could use them to foil Israeli or US airstrikes against sites linked to Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons programme.  [Space War]

The Russian S-300 missile also known by the NATO designation of a SA-10 has a range of 150 kilometers and can destroy an aircraft at a maximum altitude of 30 kilometers.  It also has the ability to shoot down not only aircraft but ballistic missiles as well.  Its radar has the ability to simultaneously track 100 targets while being engage 12 of them at the same time.  The radars maximum range is that it can detect ballistic missiles out to 1000 kilometers and cruise missiles and aircraft up to 300 kilometers. 

This is a pretty impressive system which appears to be on paper anyway similar to a US PATRIOT  missile.  However, as just this past year during Operation Orchard, the Israelis defeated the Russian made air defense systems in Syria and I wouldn’t be surprised if they were able to do it again.