As part of the Russian Armed Forces, there is a separate branch of the armed forces, which is directly subordinate to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation - the Strategic Missile Forces (Strategic Missile Forces).
Their holiday - the Day of the Strategic Missile Forces - is celebrated in the troops on December 17, according to the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 1239 of December 10, 1995.
On this day in 1959, the Strategic Rocket Forces were created (Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 1384-615 of 1959-17-12).
The creation and rapid development of the Strategic Missile Forces took place in the difficult post-war years, this was due to the fact that foreign countries, in particular the United States, already had missile weapons that posed a real threat to the security of our country. The base for the production of Soviet ballistic missiles was the German captured FAU-2 missiles. Test launches of German missiles began in 1947, and on October 10, 1948, the first Soviet ballistic missile R-1 was launched.
Chief Marshal of Artillery of the USSR Mitrofan Ivanovich Nedelin was appointed the first commander of the Strategic Missile Forces of the USSR.
Mitrofan Nedelin was born on November 9, 1902 in Borisoglebsk, now the Voronezh region. In the Red Army since 1920. Participated in the civil war. In 1941, he began his journey along the fronts of the Great Patriotic War with the rank of colonel, as the commander of the 4th artillery anti-tank brigade, and finished in 1945 as the commander of the artillery of the Southwestern and 3rd Ukrainian fronts.
M. I. Nedelin made a great contribution to the organizational and practical work on the creation of the Strategic Missile Forces. He directly supervised the organization of the research base of the domestic rocket industry, supervised the activities of state commissions on flight design tests of the first long-range missile models, incl. equipped with nuclear charges.
The commander's life was tragically cut short on October 24, 1960 during a test launch of a new R-16 missile at the Baikonur test site; he, along with other testers, died in the line of duty.
The Strategic Missile Forces are troops of constant combat readiness. They represent the ground component of the strategic nuclear forces (SNF), which, in addition to the RSVN, have strategic aviation and naval strategic forces, therefore, the strategic nuclear forces are also called the "nuclear triad."
Not all nuclear powers in the world have their own nuclear triad, that is, air, land, and naval components of strategic nuclear forces. Russia has.
The Russian Federation has in its Armed Forces such a unique structure as the Strategic Missile Forces, military specialists for which are trained by the Military Academy. Peter the Great (in 2015 relocated to Balashikha near Moscow), as well as specialized training centers.
The main armament of the Strategic Missile Forces is ground-based intercontinental ballistic missiles equipped with nuclear warheads.
Currently, the Strategic Missile Forces are in service with several types of stationary and mobile missile systems. The mobile-based grouping includes PGRK Topol, Topol-M and PGRK Yars. The missiles of these complexes can be launched from virtually any given point that a base vehicle carrying a nuclear weapon can reach.
On the eve of the RF Ministry of Defense announced that the Yars mobile missile systems entered service with the Yoshkar-Ola Strategic Missile Forces compound
Missile systems with "heavy" and "light" class missiles form the basis of the stationary-based grouping.
To date, serial production and delivery of missile systems and systems to the troops continues. Certain successes have been achieved in the creation of new missile systems, which in the future will replace the existing equipment in service. The RS-26 "Rubezh" ("Yars-M") intercontinental ballistic missile, which is being developed by the specialists of the Votkinsk plant, is close to being put into service. In the near future, it is planned to gradually replace heavy-class intercontinental ballistic missiles; for this, a project is being developed for a fifth-generation RS-28 "Sarmat" missile, which should be tentatively completed in 2018.
It is expected that by 2020-2022, the basis of the strategic missile forces' armaments will be the complexes created over the past 10-15 years, which will have a positive effect not only on the combat capability of the Strategic Missile Forces themselves, but also on the strategic security of the state.
