Russia tests prototype missile

Russia successfully tested a prototype new weapon that can penetrate any prospective missile defences during this week’s military exercise, a senior general said today.

Colonel General Yuri Baluyevsky, the first deputy chief of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, said that the prototype of a new hypersonic vehicle had proved its ability to manoeuvre in orbit – a quality he said would allow a weapon based on such a craft to dodge an enemy’s missile shield.

“The flying vehicle changed both the altitude and direction of its flight,” Baluyevsky said in Moscow

“During the experiment conducted yesterday, we proved that it’s possible to develop weapons that would make any missile defence useless.”

Baluyevsky’s comment followed a statement by President Vladimir Putin, who said, after attending rocket launches from the Plesetsk launch pad in northern Russia, that experiments conducted during the military manoeuvres had proven that Russia could build new strategic weapons that would be unrivalled in the world.

Putin said that the development of new weapons was not directed against the United States, and Baluyevsky reaffirmed the statement, saying that the experiment shouldn’t be seen as Russia’s response to US missile defence plans dubbed Son of Star Wars.

“The experiment conducted by us mustn’t be interpreted as a warning to the Americans not to build their missile defence because we designed this thing,” Baluyevsky said.

He said that Russia has no intention of immediately deploying new weapons based on the experimental vehicle.

”We have demonstrated our capability, but we have no intention of building this craft tomorrow,” he said.

Baluyevsky said that Russia had informed the United States about its intention to conduct the experiment and added that US officials had made no complaints.

He said that the new vehicle had “ceased to exist” after the experiment - presumably burning up in the atmosphere – and emphasised that its flight did not jeopardise any country.

Baluyevsky refused to comment on what kind of engine the vehicle had, how long its flight lasted and how exactly it manoeuvered.

He said that it had been designed by several Russian companies, but refused to name them.

As part of the massive military manoeuvres described as the largest since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the military launched a Molniya-M booster rocket with a Kosmos military satellite from the northern Plesetsk launch pad and two ballistic missiles – a Topol from Plesetsk and an RS-18 from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Baluyevsky refused to say which of the rockets had carried the vehicle into the orbit.