A new heavy intercontinental ballistic missile will be developed in Russia by 2018, Lenta.ru reports.
It was declared by the Commander-in-Chief of the Strategic Missile Forces, general-colonel, Sergey Karakaev. According to him, the construction is currently underway.

Ministry of Defense has stated earlier that it plans to develop a new heavy liquid fuel missile in view of deployment of American antiballistic missile defense in Europe.

According to Karakaev, the potential of small-size solid-fuel ballistic missiles may be insufficient in order to overpower enemy antiballistic missile defense. It is better to use liquid fuel missiles with an all-up weight of about 100 tons for these purposes. It is intended to deploy such missiles only in launching silos.

Ministry of Defense has also performed tests of new solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile twice – on September 27th 2011 and May 23rd 2012. The first test was unsuccessful. The warhead of the missile launched from Plesetsk successfully arrived at the designated position in Kamchatka during the second test.

There is not much information about the new missile launched in May. Reportedly, the missile’s prototype operates on a new fuel, which helps decrease burn time on the carrier’s powered flight. This fact increases chances of overpowering enemy antiballistic missile defenses. Anonymous representative of the Ministry of Defense attributed the May test to the testing of new warhead of Yars intercontinental ballistic missile.