Russia Test Fires Nuclear Missile
Claims Show Of Strength Not A Reminder To The US
3/28/03 11:37:05 AM
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Agency France Press
Moscow, Russia -- sg.news.yahoo.com
Thursday March 27, 9:42 PM
Russia successfully launches test ICBM
The Russian military successfully launched a test intercontinental ballistic missile from its northwestern Plisetsk base, military officials said.
The Topol rocket, which was 18 years old, was fired at the Kamchatka peninsula, the usual target for most Russian intercontinental test sights.
"It was a complete success," one military official told AFP.
The military stressed that the launch was in no way linked with the United States' decision to launch the Iraqi war.
"This has nothing to do with it. It has nothing to do with Iraq," an officer at the Russian Strategic Missile Forces press service told AFP by telephone.
"This has been in the planning for months," the official said.
Russia bitterly opposed strikes on Iraq, with President Vladimir Putin taking a tough stance against the war in recent days.
Analysts have interpreted Putin's comments to mean that there has been a rupture in Moscow's relations with Washington sparked by the war.
When contacted by AFP earlier, a Russian military space agency official had refused to answer whether the test had been planned before or after the US- British military attack on Iraq.
Officials said the Topol launch from Plisetsk was the 79th launch of this type of rocket since 1981.
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