Reporting this Thurs. Aug. 28, Alexander Vovk, spokesman for Russia’s strategic nuclear forces said the Topol RS-12M was tested to “develop equipment for potential combat and use against ground-based missiles.”
Earlier this week, amid the crisis over Georgia, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev warned of a military response to the US missile shield to be installed in Europe.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report the Topol RS-12M ballistic missile (NATO codenamed SS-25 Sickle) is a new piece of equipment which Russian generals have said Moscow is working on to pierce any missile shield the US could make.
The ICBM test follows Russia’s warning to NATO against sending more ships to the Black Sea and caution to Moldava to watch its step.
Wednesday, DEBKAfile reported:
America’s decision to redirect its Georgia aid warship from Russian-controlled Poti port to Georgian-controlled Batumi Wednesday, August 27 – on direct orders from the Pentagon - did not cool the escalating tension between the two powers. As soon as the US Coast Guard cutter Dallas docked with 34 tons of humanitarian aid, three Russian missile boats, led by the Moskva missile cruiser, anchored at the Black Sea port of Sukhumi, capital of breakaway Abkhazia, to the north for what the Russians called “peacekeeping operations.”
In Moscow, Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn said NATO had exhausted the number of forces it can deploy in the Black Sea under international agreements. He warned Western nations against sending more ships. “NATO – which is not a state located in the Black Sea” cannot continuously increase its forces and systems there, he said.
According to DEBKAfile’s military sources, ten NATO warships are present in the Black Sea – American, Turkish, German, Spanish and Polish. Alliance sources have said more vessels would soon be deployed raising the number to eighteen.
Moldova, another former Soviet Black Sea nation, is the latest target of Russian threats and a factor in the Russian-US contest over the region.
Tuesday, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev warned Moldovan leaders against repeating Georgia’s mistake of trying to use force to regain control of its breakaway region of Transdniestria. Russian peacekeepers have been posted there since 1990, when provincial separatists fought to break away from Moldova. This dispute mirrors the predicament of Georgia and other former Soviet nations which have large Russian populations.
Wednesday, Russian ambassador Valeri Kuzmin advised Moldova’s leaders to avoid a “bloody and catastrophic trend of events.” He said Moscow had recognized South Ossetian and Abkhazian independence the day before, because of “Georgian’s aggression.”
Ukraine stepped in Wednesday with a demand to renegotiate the Russian Black Sea fleet’s lease for the use of the Sevastopol base and raise the rent.
