U.S. needs 5 GBIs to intercept one Topol ICBM, Russian expert says

PanARMENIAN.Net - The United States will need between five and seven Ground Based Interceptors (GBI) to intercept one Russian Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missile, a Russian military expert said on Tuesday, April 2, according to RIA Novosti.

“From my contacts with the director of the [U.S. Department of Defense’s] Missile Defense Agency, I have learned that the Americans will need five to seven interceptors to engage one Topol-M missile,” retired Col. Gen. Viktor Yesin, former chief of staff at Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces (1994-1996), told a news conference hosted by RIA Novosti.

He did not elaborate on the nature of his contacts with the MDA head or when he had received the information.

The U.S. has deployed 30 GBIs, Yesin said – “26 in Alaska and four in California,” adding that the effectiveness of the U.S. countermissiles is “somewhat limited.”

He also said missile defense negotiations with the United States will produce no positive results, and that development in that area will continue.

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced in mid-March that plans for the final stage of Central European-based missile shields are to be scrapped and that interceptors will instead be placed in Alaska.

The U.S. change to the program has come in response to increasingly confrontational rhetoric from North Korea, which said Tuesday that it would restart its nuclear reactor.