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Russian defence minister says upgraded strategic missiles to appear soon
Interfax

Munich, 13 February: Russian Federation Defence Minister Sergey Ivanov has declared that new strategic missile systems without equivalent anywhere in the world will appear in Russia soon.

"We are working on new missile systems, which President Putin has referred to earlier. We have reason to believe they will be unique systems that no other country in the world has," the minister told a news conference in Munich on Sunday [13 February].

"We hope these systems will appear in the near future," Ivanov said.

The minister declared that the missile systems "will not be directed against any country in the world". "But they will enable our sovereignty to be protected against any threats, both existing ones and any that might arise in the future," he said.

Ivanov did not give the specifications of the missile systems, but only said: "What the Russian president said at the Plesetsk cosmodrome - each word and every comma of his - is of great significance."

According to Ivanov, "Russia does not need the number of missiles and nuclear warheads that the former Soviet Union had".

"But Russia was, is and will be a nuclear power. We are carrying out work to modernize the entire nuclear triad, focusing above all on the quality of armaments rather than their quantity," Ivanov said.