Bulava

The United States is absolutely right to reject Vladimir Putin's criticism of the proposed missile defence shield. Talk of "maintaining the balance" is misleading: Putin simply does not want his country to lose the one playable card it holds.
 

Russia's new nuclear-capable Bulava missile has suffered a new failure in testing which was the likely source of a mysterious light that appeared over Norway, Russian newspapers report today. The missile was test-fired from the Dmitry Donskoi submarine in the White Sea early Wednesday but failed at the third stage, the Kommersant and Vedomosti newspapers reported, quoting defence sources. The test was the 13th test-firing of the Bulava and the ninth time that the launch has failed.

Russia’s top general Nikolai Makarov, the chief of the General Staff, announced this week that the Russian navy wants to buy a French helicopter carrier. Marakov also announced that Russia has deployed advanced air defense systems on the border with North Korea and will press ahead in developing the beleaguered Bulava missile.
 

Yesterday, 3rd August,  President Medvedev signed an executive order appointing Lieutenant General Andrei Shvaichenko to the position of commander of Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces and releasing him from his previous duties as chief of staff and first deputy commander of the Strategic Missile Forces.
The same executive order released Colonel General Nikolai Solovtsov from the post of commander of the Strategic Missile Forces and retired him from military service.