From Le Figaro with AFP
Published 1 hour ago, updated 1 hour ago
Pictures of the Russian rocket launch. RUSSIAN MINISTRY OF DEFENSE/Portal
With a range of 8,000 kilometers and a length of 12 meters, the Boulava can be equipped with ten nuclear warheads. According to the Russian army, it was fired from the Borei-class submarine Kaiser Alexander III, which was armed with 16 Bulava missiles.
Russia said on Sunday that it had successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying nuclear warheads from a fourth-generation nuclear submarine. The launch of the Bulava missile, the first in about a year, comes shortly after Russia withdrew its ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).
“The new strategic nuclear submarine Kaiser Alexander III. “Successfully fired the Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile from the White Sea,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement. The missile hit its target at a test site on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia’s Far East “as planned,” he said.
With a range of 8,000 kilometers and 12 meters long, the Boulava (SS-NX-30 in the NATO classification) can be equipped with ten nuclear warheads. The submarine Emperor Alexander III. According to the Russian army, the Borei class is equipped with 16 Bulava missiles.
Revocation of CTBT
Since the conflict in Ukraine began in February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin has strongly criticized the use of nuclear weapons and deployed tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, Russia’s closest ally, in the summer of 2023. On Thursday, against the backdrop of the conflict in Ukraine and the crisis with the West, Vladimir Putin announced a law revoking Russia’s ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.
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This treaty, opened for signature in 1996 and ratified by Russia in 2000, has never entered into force because too few states have ratified it, including 44 states that had nuclear facilities at the time of writing. The United States has not ratified it. However, despite this lifting, Russia “wants to continue to respect the moratorium on nuclear tests,” the Russian Foreign Ministry assured on Friday.