The Strategic Missile Troops or Strategic Rocket Forces of the Russian Federation or RVSN RF are a military branch of the Russian Military that controls Russia's land-based ICBMs. The RVSN was first formed in the Soviet Armed Forces, and when the USSR collapsed in 1990–1991, it effectively changed its name from the Soviet to the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces.
The Strategic Rocket Forces were created on December 17, 1959 as the main Soviet force used for attacking an enemy's offensive nuclear weapons, military facilities, and industrial infrastructure. They operated all Soviet ground-based intercontinental, intermediate-range, and medium-range nuclear missiles with ranges over 1,000 kilometers. Complementary strategic forces within Russia are the Long Range Aviation and the Russian Navy's ballistic missile submarines.
Read more about Strategic Missile Troops: History, Composition in 2010s
Famous quotes containing the words strategic, missile and/or troops:
“The strategic adversary is fascism ... the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us.”
—Michel Foucault (1926–1984)
“... the truth is the hardest missile one can be pelted with.”
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“O, now for ever
Farewell the tranquil mind, farewell content,
Farewell the plumèd troops and the big wars
That makes ambition virtue! O, farewell!”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)