NEW YORK (UN). Oct 13 (Interfax-AVN) - The United States will have over 1,000 missiles in its missile defense system by 2022, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
"Let's look at the capabilities of the U.S. missile system weapons. They now include over 30 Ground-based Interceptors (GBI) , 130 Standard Missiles 3, and 150 anti-missiles of the Thaad system. Over 60 anti-missiles are deployed in Europe and some 150 anti-missiles are included in the Asia and Pacific regional missile defense segment," Russian Defense Ministry official Alexander Yemelyanov said at a Russian-Chinese briefing on missile defense held on the sidelines of the First Committee of the UN General Assembly.
"According to our estimations, the number of anti-missiles included in the missile defense system will exceed 1,000 by 2022, and in the perspective it will exceed the number of combat units deployed on the Russian intercontinental missiles," Yemelyanov said.
"This number of missile system weapons is a threat to the Russian deterrence potential, especially bearing in mind the continual modernization of missile system weapons," he said.
The modernization of Standard Missile 3 increases the speed, range and interception altitude of ballistic missiles, he said.
"Russian experts believe that Standard Missile 3 anti-missiles of 2A modification, whose deployment is envisaged from 2018, will be capable of intercepting strategic ballistic missiles not only on the medium and end, but also on the upside section of the missile flight trajectory, which makes it possible to hit ballistic missiles before warhead dispensing," Yemelyanov said.