Defense Express: All indications are that Russia did not launch intercontinental ballistic missiles
Despite the fact that Russia planned to conduct a "training and combat" launch of the RS-24 Yars intercontinental ballistic missile, everything indicates that this did not happen. This was reported by Defense Express .
The Defense Ministry's Main Intelligence Directorate warned that Moscow wants to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles on the night of May 19 to "demonstrate pressure and intimidate Ukraine, as well as the European Union and NATO member states.".
The launch area was to be "as atypical as possible" - in the Sverdlovsk region, near the village of Svobodny.
It is there that the 433rd Regiment of the 42nd Division of the 31st Army of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces is based. It is only 25 km from Nizhny Tagil, Defense Express emphasizes, so any launch would be "very likely to be filmed by the locals.".
After the launch, similar photos could appear on the network:
"The Russians would also have been able to observe the missile's flight. Given that the main Russian test site for intercontinental missiles is Kura in Kamchatka, the flight of this missile should have been observed over a large area of Siberia and the Far East, from Khanty-Mansiysk to Magadan. But no video of its flight has been published," Defense Express emphasizes .
It remains unclear why the launch failed, but the publication reminds that in 2023, the Russian Federation twice in a row failed to launch RS-24 Yars, which went off course.
"In the end, any missile undergoes pre-flight inspection, and it is unlikely that the Kremlin is interested in showing the failure of its nuclear deterrent before the talks between Putin and Trump,".
says
Also, an emergency situation on the first stage of the flight immediately after the start is not excluded, Defense Express noted.
"Despite the fact that Yars is a deep modernization of Topol, there is always a risk of failure. We also recall that at the end of September 2024, an RS-28 Sarmat exploded in the launch shaft at the Plesetsk cosmodrome in the Russian Federation," the publication added.
LIGA.net asked the PGO for a comment, but at the time of publication of the news received no response.
- Russia has already conducted exercises using Yars systems in 2022 and 2023. The latter, according to the GUR, took place together with the test of the Bulava missiles and were unsuccessful .
- In November 2024, Russia hit the Dnipro with a medium-range ballistic missile "Oreshnik" capable of carrying a nuclear charge.