AFP, MOSCOW: Faulty navigation systems were responsible for Russia's spectacular failure to test-fire three missiles last month, according to preliminary investigation results cited Wednesday.
On February 18, an unarmed Russian ballistic missile known as the RSM-53 veered off course and self-destructed during the nation's largest military exercises in 20 years, attended by President Vladimir Putin weeks before his reelection bid.
The previous day, the navy failed to launch two intercontinental ballistic missiles, known as ICBMs.
A military commission investigating the incidents has determined that navigation systems were to blame for both failures, the Kommersant daily reported Wednesday.
In the incident involving the RSM-53 missile, given the NATO specification SS-N-23 and first developed by the Soviet Union in 1979, “the commission came to the conclusion that the… navigation system was at fault,” Kommersant said citing unnamed sources.
During the ICBM launches in the Barents Sea, fault was attributed to the Shluz navigation system of the Tobol-M submarine from which the missiles were due to be fired, Kommersant said.
“It has been determined that 201 seconds before the first launch… there was a malfunction of the main and then the backup system of the Shluz navigation system,” the daily wrote.
Both incidents blighted the war games, held less than a month before Putin stands for reelection on March 14 and intended to convince the United States that its missiles could penetrate any defense shield now being developed by Washington.
