South China Morning Post – Dec 17, 2024

Russia is boosting its ballistic arsenal with new strategic missile systems, plans maximum-range launches and may increase testing in response to growing external threats, a senior Russian military commander said on Monday.

In a clear warning that Russia will respond if it deems its security is threatened, Sergei Karakayev, the commander of Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces, said the country plans maximum-range test launches as part of testing new systems.

“In terms of range, there is no place where our missiles cannot reach,” Russia’s RIA state news agency cited Karakayev as telling the Krasnaya Zvezda, the Russian defence ministry’s official newspaper, in an interview.

He added that Russia may increase the intensity of tests of its advanced missile Confirming for the first time publicly that Russia is developing a new intercontinental ballistic missile system, the Osina, Karakayev said the introduction into combat of Osina and a number of new missile systems is a priority.

He said, without revealing details, that Russia is also completing the development of missile systems akin to its new intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile known as Oreshnik, which President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that Russia will mass-produce soon.

Russia struck Ukraine in November with Oreshnik in response to Ukraine’s use of US and British missiles against Russia.

Karakayev said Russia’s new state armament development programme will consider various options for the development of strategic offensive weapons by Russia and will take into account similar moves by the US after the expiration of the New START nuclear arms treaty between the countries in 2026.

Russian media reported in October that Moscow will not sign a replacement for the START treaty, the last remnant of efforts to slow the nuclear arms race between the former Cold War superpowers and to increase transparency by imposing verifiable limits on the number of weapons.

Karakayev said that Russia had not ruled out increasing the number of warheads on deployed missiles after the New START treaty expires, in response to similar actions by the United States weapons if external threats grow.

He also said that Moscow and Washington continue to give each other a 24-hour warning of any planned test launch of intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.

Russia’s armament programme ensures that Russia’s strategic missile forces are equipped with mobile missile systems, Karakayev said.

“Missile divisions equipped with mobile-based missile systems will be a decisive means of inflicting devastating damage on the enemy in a retaliatory strike due to high manoeuvrability and survivability, especially in the context of the deployment of the US missile defence system,” he said.

Also on Monday, Putin hailed his army’s accelerating advance in Ukraine and praised 2024 as a “landmark” year in the course of Moscow’s military offensive on its Western-backed neighbour.

Addressing top military generals in an end-of-year meeting, the Kremlin leader struck a defiant and optimistic tone, claiming his troops had the upper hand across the entire front line.

He also hit out at what he called a Western “hybrid war” and its attempts to inflict a “strategic defeat” on Moscow.

The comments come with Russia’s army advancing across eastern Ukraine at their fastest pace since the first weeks of the offensive.

“Russian troops are firmly holding the strategic initiative along the entire line of contact,” Putin said in the televised meeting with army bosses and defence ministry officials.

He said Russia’s army had seized 189 Ukrainian settlements this year and called 2024 a “landmark year in the achievement of the goals of the special military operation”, using Moscow’s official language for its campaign.

Speaking after Putin at the same meeting, Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov said Russia’s troops had seized a total of almost 4,500 sq km (1,737 square miles) of Ukrainian territory in this year and were now gaining around 30 sq km a day.

Agence France-Presse analysis of Institute for the Study of War data found that in November Russian troops advanced at their fastest pace since March 2022 – the first full month of the offensive.

Putin has been accused by Kyiv and the West of escalating the nearly three-year conflict in recent weeks.

On Monday, 10 countries and the EU called North Korea’s growing involvement the conflict a “dangerous expansion” of the fighting “with serious consequences for European and Indo-Pacific security”.

The foreign ministers of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States and the high representative of the European Union signed the release.

It came after Ukraine said it had killed or wounded at least 30 North Korean troops fighting alongside Russia’s soldiers in the Kursk border region, where Kyiv is mounting an offensive.

The United States, South Korea and Ukraine have accused the North of sending more than 10,000 soldiers to support Russia.

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