Russia boosts nuclear spending with order of 70 strategic missiles

Russia is to increase sharply its production of strategic nuclear missiles, throwing down the gauntlet to the US president-elect, Barack Obama, who would have to deal with the Kremlin's response to US missile plans in Europe. A senior government official in Moscow said the Russian military would commission 70 strategic missiles over the next three years. It was unclear whether sea-launched ballistic missiles were included in this figure, but military experts said it could represent up to a fourfold increase on the rate of production of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). The missiles would be part of a £95bn defense procurement package for 2009-2011, said Vladislav Putilin, a deputy head of the Russian cabinet's military-industrial commission in charge of weapons industries. Russia has produced only five to seven Topol-M ICBMs a year since the late 1990s and its stockpiles of several hundred heavy Soviet-era missiles such as the SS-19 Stiletto are rapidly reaching the end of their lifespan. Putilin told a press conference the defense package represented a 28% increase on the previously announced procurement budget for 2009, with further increases in the following two years. "More than 70 strategic missiles will be bought and delivered to troops in the next three years, more than 30 short-range Iskander missiles and a large number of booster rockets and aircraft," he said. Military experts said the increased procurement of ICBMs was an attempt by Russia's depleted armed forces to produce a bargaining chip in negotiations with Washington over signing a new arms reduction treaty to replace Start I. The Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, has signaled his intention to take an aggressive stance with the new US administration. On the day Obama was elected Medvedev announced plans to station short-range Iskander missiles in Russia's Kaliningrad exclave if the US goes ahead with building a missile defence system in Europe. Ruben Sergeev, an expert on disarmament issues, said Moscow was afraid of falling behind in a new arms race. "Russia is decommissioning its old liquid-fuel missiles from the Soviet era at a rate of several dozen every year," he said. "The Kremlin knows that if it doesn't increase production of ICBMs rapidly, then it will have no chance of getting a new arms reduction treaty out of the United States, which has much greater quantities of missiles." The Start I treaty, signed between the Soviet Union and the US, expires in December next year, with negotiations on a new deal expected to start in the spring. Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, said last week the treaty needed to be "preserved and strengthened". "Without the mutual control agreements embodied in the Start treaty, Russia, as the weaker partner, would lose all possibilities to keep tabs on the Americans' quickly developing strategic nuclear forces," said Sergeev.