Strategic ballistic missile launched in White Sea

Russia has successfully conducted the first in-flight test of a Bulava strategic ballistic missile in a White Sea trial, a top defense ministry official said Tuesday. The missile was launched from the Dmitry Donskoy, a Typhoon class ballistic missile submarine, at 5:22 p.m. Moscow time (1:22 p.m. GMT).

"At the estimated elapsed time a dummy warhead hit the designated 'target' at the Kura test site on the Kamchatka Peninsula," a navy spokesman said. In 2004, Russia successfully conducted surface and underwater pop-up tests of the Bulava strategic ballistic missile.

Russia's Borey-class nuclear submarines will be equipped with Bulava missiles. Two submarines are being constructed at the Sevmash plant in Severodvinsk in the Arkhangelsk region. The first submarine, the Yury Dolgoruky, will be commissioned in 2006 and the second, the Alexander Nevsky, in 2007, RIA Novosti reports.