MOSCOW. Dec 17 (Interfax) - U.S. missile defense systems in Romania and Poland are unable to reduce the capabilities of Russia's Strategic Missile Forces (RVSN), the forces' commander Sergei Karakayev said.
"Regarding the deployment of missile defense sites in Poland, as previously in Romania, I can say confidently that the effectiveness of such steps by the American leadership is almost zero in terms of their ability to dent the combat capabilities of the RVSN," Karakayev said in an interview with the Russian Defense Ministry's Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper.
"First, the missile defense systems the U.S. is stationing in Europe are unable to intercept intercontinental ballistic missiles launched toward the northern hemisphere due to their energy characteristics," he said.
"Second, the RVSN's intercontinental ballistic missiles are equipped with advanced systems to counter missile defenses and have a short powered trajectory leg, which combined not only complicates, but makes their detection, tracking and interception all but impossible," Karakayev said.
Russia is upgrading its strategic missile systems "given the need to neutralize in a guaranteed manner the capabilities of the existing and future elements of U.S. air defense," he said.
"This preemptive approach allows our specialists to timely identify possible threats and predict when they could emerge. As a result, already at the creation stage, missile systems are equipped with technical solutions ensuring they are effective against any prospective development of the global missile defense shield by the U.S. and its allies," Karakayev said.
"Intercontinental ballistic missiles are fitted with fundamentally new types of warheads, which are almost invincible. Today, the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle and of course the Oreshnik system have become widely known across the world. On top of that, an extensive range of equally efficient products are at the final stage of development, but time has yet to come to talk in more detail about them," he said.