Originally appeared at RussiaFeed.com
“An upgraded Iskander-M missile system carried out test launch of a missile from the Kapustin Yar testing range in the Astrakhan region in the framework of the Zapad-2017 joint Russia-Belarus strategic exercise,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement obtained by Sputnik.
“The missile flew the distance of 480 kilometers [some 300 miles] and successfully hit a designated target at the Makat testing range [Kazakhstan],” the statement said.
The 9K720 Iskander (Russian: «Искандер») is a mobile short-range ballistic missile system produced and deployed by the Russian Federation. The missile systems (Искандер-М) are to replace the obsolete OTR-21 Tochka systems, still in use by the Russian armed forces, by 2020.
The Iskander has several different conventional warheads, including a cluster munitions warhead, a fuel-air explosive enhanced-blast warhead, a high explosive-fragmentation warhead, an earth penetrator for bunker busting and an electromagnetic pulse device for anti-radar missions.
The missile can also carry nuclear warheads. In September 2017, the KBM general designer Valery M. Kashin said that there were at least seven types of missiles (and ″perhaps more″) for Iskander, including one cruise missile.
The 9K720 Iskander (Russian: «Искандер») is a mobile short-range ballistic missile system produced and deployed by the Russian Federation. The missile systems (Искандер-М) are to replace the obsolete OTR-21 Tochka systems, still in use by the Russian armed forces, by 2020.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
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Parting shot—a word from the editors
The Best Definition of Donald Trump We Have Found
In his zeal to prove to his antagonists in the War Party that he is as bloodthirsty as their champion, Hillary Clinton, and more manly than Barack Obama, Trump seems to have gone “play-crazy” -- acting like an unpredictable maniac in order to terrorize the Russians into forcing some kind of dramatic concessions from their Syrian allies, or risk Armageddon.However, the “play-crazy” gambit can only work when the leader is, in real life, a disciplined and intelligent actor, who knows precisely what actual boundaries must not be crossed. That ain’t Donald Trump -- a pitifully shallow and ill-disciplined man, emotionally handicapped by obscene privilege and cognitively crippled by white American chauvinism. By pushing Trump into a corner and demanding that he display his most bellicose self, or be ceaselessly mocked as a “puppet” and minion of Russia, a lesser power, the War Party and its media and clandestine services have created a perfect storm of mayhem that may consume us all.— Glen Ford, Editor in Chief, Black Agenda Report
