NEWS: Russian Missile Test Fails

Russia has been running a major military exercise which included ten ships and six nuclear submarines. The peak of this exercise was to be a test launch of two ballistic missiles from one of the nuclear submarines. This scheduled event was of major importance, and Putin was to watch the launch from one of the other submarines in the exercise.

news.bbc.co.uk
"A test launch of two ballistic missiles, planned as part of a military exercise attended by the Russian president, has failed, reports said."

Interfax is reporting that the missile test have failed. This is a huge blow to the success of the exercise since ballistic nuclear missiles are what separates the big boys who rule the nuclear block from the kids who would like to play. One has to wonder if this is the tip of the iceberg. Ballistic missiles were the great threat during the Cold War, but now Russia's might seems to be crumbling. With the Russian elections just weeks away, this could cause an embarrassment for Putin.





[Edited on 18-2-2004 by SkepticOverlord]

Of course Russia is allready denying this failure. Here's a good story from The Moscow Times about the aging Russian missile inventory to read along with this story.
Old ICBMs, Old Thinking

Of course Russian authority is denying this....who wouldn't, I mean geez, Putin was at the exercise to view this!
Now....just where was that US 688 'boat' at anyhow?


regards
seekerof

This isn't the first failure. I believe that the Kursk had the same failure, only it's was catastrophic. Putin is probably changing his uniform.

For this i can only say HA

Well hell they #ed up this time.

Maybe next time will be better.



Out,
Russian

The lastest news is that one of the missiles blew up after it was lauched. I don't know if that's any worse than not lauching.
Putin's nuclear show blows up in his face
news.telegraph.co.uk states the obvious:
"Television, which had been leading news programmes with glowing reports of the exercises, quickly reduced them to a short bulletin."

The blowup of missile is now lead story on goggle "world news"
news.google.com...://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3762075,00.html
Apparently this happenned today on a re-attempt to launch

ap.tbo.com...

[Edited on 18-2-2004 by Phoenix]