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Russia just successfully tested one of its newest ICBMs - Here's what it can do

Sep 21, 2017, 22:35 IST

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RS-24 YARS ICBM test launch.Russian Ministry of Defense

The Russian Ministry of Defense announced on Wednesday that it had successfully tested one of its newest intercontinental ballistic missiles. 

The solid-fuel RS-24 YARS ICBM equipped with a nuclear warhead was fired from Plesetsk and reached the Kura range site in Kamchatka Krai, the ministry of defense said. 

"All ... tasks have been fully accomplished," the ministry of defense said.

The distance between the Plesetsk Cosmodrome and the Kura test range in Kamchatka Krai is more than 5,000 miles.

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The launch was done in conjunction with the Zapad-2017 war game exercises, which Russia completed Wednesday, according to The National Interest.  

Russia also test fired a silo-based YARS ICBM with an "experimental warhead" on Sept. 12, according to TASS, while Wednesday's launch was from a mobile unit. 

"It is not clear what these new "experimental" Russian reentry vehicles (RV) are," The National Interest reported, adding that it's possible that it was a maneuvarable reentry vehicle designed to allude missile defense systems. 

Despite Russia signing the New START Treaty with the US in 2010, which limited the number of nuclear warheads both countries could build, Moscow continues to increase its stockpile, according to Defense One. 

"The aggregate data shows that Russia has continued to increase its deployed strategic warheads since 2013 when it reached its lowest level of 1,400 warheads. Russian strategic launchers now carry 396 warheads more," Hans M. Kristensen, of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, wrote last year, according to Defense One. 

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Here's what the RS-24 YARS ICBM can do. 

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