MOSCOW. Feb 11 (Interfax-AVN) - Penetrating nuclear weapons will be developed in no less than 10 to 15 years, Academician Viktor Mikhailov, director of the Strategic Stability Institute of the Atomic Energy Ministry and a leading expert with the Russian Federal Nuclear Center, said in an interview with the Rossiyskaya Gazeta daily published on Wednesday.
"To develop penetrating nuclear munitions is a very hard problem to be solved in no less than 10 to 15 years. Americans have admitted that they have succeeded in penetrating only five to six meters of hard ground. (To penetrate - Interfax-AVN) tens of meters is very hard, though it is possible principally," he said.
According to him, Western media reports say that American nuclear research is focused on developing a penetrating nuclear munition with a yield of hundreds of tonnes to tens of kilotonnes, capable of hitting individual dug-in targets. Such a bomb, Mikhailov said, could use a nuclear warhead protected by a powerful shield burning down on ground entry until it touches the charge. Thus, the bomb goes off deep in the ground, which generates a powerful local seismic wave and minimizes radioactive contamination of the surroundings, to provide conditions for subsequent invasion and establishing a "new order", the expert noted.
He said that Russian nuclear experts "keep a close eye" on the developments, because only Russia and the U.S. could develop such weapons.
Mikhailov said that the USSR had been developing such weapons, and the U.S. was going the same way on the issue of low- yield penetration munitions.
According to the expert, Russian nuclear research had been lagging behind the U.S. until 1955. "In 1955 we not only bridged the gap but also overran them, qualitatively as well as quantitatively. And so now they hang upon our lips," he said.