Kremlin: US anti-missile defense able to intercept Russia’s ballistic missiles
Even today, the United States’ anti-missile defense ensures not only the detection of the launch, but also the possibility of intercepting Russian ballistic missiles, Russian Defense Ministry spokesperson Alexander Emelyanov said during a Russian-Chinese briefing on anti-missile defense, on the sidelines of the First Committee of the UN General Assembly.
“Even now, the information and reconnaissance facilities of the American anti-missile defense system ensure that Russian ballistic missile launches are detected, their flight trajectories tracked, and also that target designations are given to the anti-missile defense firing systems in order to intercept ballistic missile warheads,” Emelyanov explained.
The Defense Ministry spokesman gave examples of hypothetical scenarios in which Russian missiles were intercepted by American anti-missiles.
Notably, one of the scenarios proposes the interception of a Russian intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) by an anti-missile defense system located on a US military ship in the Baltic Sea. Emelyanov noted that during the modeling of this scenario by Russian specialists, “the interception was successful, and was even carried out during the ascending phase of the ICBM’s flight”.
In another scenario, Russian specialists modeled the interception of a ballistic missile launched from a Russian submarine in the Barents Sea. The hypothetical interception was made by a US anti-missile ship with Standard-3 missiles in the Norwegian Sea.
“The results provided by the modeling are evidence that, taking into account the high speed of anti-missiles, the interception of targets is possible in both cases even during the initial flight phase,” Emelyanov pointed out.
In the third stage, Russian experts modeled the interception of an ICBM launched from the central part of Russia by an anti-missile from US territory.
Emelyanov also added that the US could secretly arm the universal facilities of their anti-missile defense systems in Europe with cruise missiles. In that case, the entire European part of Russia would be in range of the cruise missiles.
He noted that the MK 41 universal launch systems, which are used by ships to launch anti-missiles and cruise missiles, are used at the US anti-missile defense bases in Romania and Poland.
“The premise that in the ground version of the Mk 41 launchers the cruise missile launching capabilities are forfeited is unconvincing. Substituting anti-missiles at the European anti-missile defense bases for cruise missiles… could be done secretly and in a short period of time. In this case, the entire European part of Russia would be in range of cruise missiles,” Emelyanov explained.
He drew attention to the fact that the possibility of using ship launchers in the ground version for deploying cruise missiles “is a direct violation of the obligations of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty”.
“We have repeatedly brought the Russian concerns regarding violations of international obligations by the US to our American partners, but there is no reaction,” the Russian Defense Ministry Spokesperson emphasized.