40 YEARS AGO RUSSIANS PROVED THAT BALLISTIC MISSILES ARE VULNERABLE








MOSCOW, March 3. /RIA Novosti correspondent/. Missilemen on Saturday marked an important date: the 40th anniversary of the world's first interception and destruction of the front section of a ballistic missile by a special intercepting anti-missile, the press-service of the Strategic Missile Forces /RVSN/ reported.


	On March 4, 1961 a medium-range missile was launched from the Kapustin Yar rocket test range (Lower Volga). After a short interval its front section was detected by tracking systems and then hit by an anti-missile. This system was deployed at the Sary-Shagan range in Kazakhstan (a former Soviet republic). The direct hit of the missile front section was not only of military and technical, but also of political significance, since in those days the ballistic missile was considered to be an "unputdownable" weapon, or absolute. 


	It was stressed at the press-service that it was a landmark event, one which opened a new page in global confrontation between the two superpowers - the USSR and the US.


	As part of events in Priozersk, where the Sary-Shagan test range is headquartered, a theoretical and technical conference was held, attended by Kapustin Yar range chief Lieutenant-General Nikolai Perevozchikov, representatives of the military-industrial complex, and officers and veterans who took part in testing the anti-missile. Major-General Vilor Matlashov, head of the Sary-Shagan range, pointed out that the successful tests carried out 40 years ago "made it possible to start the development of operational ABM systems".