Russia Drills Deployment of Mobile RS-24 Yars Nuclear Missiles Across Siberia.

Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces deployed RS-24 Yars road mobile intercontinental ballistic missile launchers across Siberia during a scheduled combat patrol exercise, according to Russian state media and the Defense Ministry. The drill highlights Moscow’s continued focus on nuclear force survivability and second strike readiness despite the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Russia has sent RS-24 Yars road mobile intercontinental ballistic missile launchers onto combat patrol routes in Siberia as part of a planned Strategic Rocket Forces exercise, Russian state outlet TASS reported on December 17, 2025. The Russian Defense Ministry said the training included night maneuvers, rapid relocation between field positions, dispersal of missile battalions, and the use of Eleron fixed-wing drones to monitor movement corridors and secure deployment areas.
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RS-24 Yars is a road-mobile, solid-fuel ICBM with roughly 10,500 km range, carrying multiple nuclear warheads and penetration aids from a survivable, fast-dispersing transporter-erector-launcher (Picture source: Russian MoD).

The most revealing detail is not the routine nature of the drill but the skill set being rehearsed. A road mobile ICBM regiment survives by staying hard to find and harder to fix in place. That means frequent movement of large vehicles, decoy and concealment discipline, quick transitions from garrison to austere launch areas, and layered security against drones and reconnaissance teams. Eleron-type mini UAVs, which Western military references describe as short-range reconnaissance systems, add an organic eyes-forward screen that helps crews detect ambush points, track suspicious activity, and reduce the risk of being followed by persistent surveillance.

Yars is a solid-fuel, three-stage intercontinental ballistic missile designed for both road mobile and silo basing. Open source assessments describe a missile roughly 22.5 meters long with a launch weight close to 50 tons, an estimated maximum range of about 10,500 kilometers, and a payload composed of multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles supported by penetration aids intended to defeat missile defenses. Warhead yields are commonly assessed in the 150 to 200 kiloton range, although precise configurations remain classified and subject to variation across production batches.

The launcher is the other half of the weapon system. Russia’s mobile Yars is typically carried on the MAZ or MZKT 79221 family of eight axle, All Wheel Drive chassis built to haul the independent launch unit and associated equipment, a design philosophy that favors strategic mobility and off-road access over reliance on fixed silos. In practical terms, the transporter erector launcher gives commanders multiple launch options across a wide road network, while the missile’s solid propellant supports rapid reaction and reduces the logistical footprint compared with older liquid-fueled systems.

So why Siberia, and why now? Siberia offers geography as a weapon: vast distances, heavy forest cover, extreme weather, and fewer dense intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance targets than western Russia, all of which complicate adversary tracking and conventional strike planning. It is also not a rear area in Russian nuclear basing terms. Multiple mobile Yars divisions are tied to locations across eastern Russia, making Siberia a core operating environment rather than a symbolic backdrop. Keeping these units active reinforces a second strike posture that is physically separated from the Ukraine theater and anchored deep inside Russian territory.

This matters because the war in Ukraine has created a misleading mental map in Western audiences. Russia has committed a large share of its conventional manpower and equipment to the front, but its nuclear forces sit in a different readiness ecosystem, with dedicated funding, training cycles, and strategic missions. Western analysts have repeatedly noted that Russian nuclear modernization has continued at a steady pace and that Moscow is likely to view nuclear forces as increasingly important as conventional capabilities are stressed, a context that helps explain why exercises like this continue even during intense conventional operations.

Compared with Western equivalents, Yars highlights a key asymmetry. NATO does not currently field a road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missile. The United States relies on silo-based Minuteman III missiles protected through hardened, dispersed launch facilities and robust command and control, and has deliberately removed multiple warheads from its land-based missiles under arms control frameworks, even though the original designs supported them. At sea, the closest peer in operational effect is the Trident II D5, which combines a longer cited range and heavier payload with submarine-based survivability and very high accuracy. Russia’s advantage with Yars lies in land mobility; the West’s advantage lies in stealthy ballistic missile submarines and deeply institutionalized deterrent infrastructure.

None of this should be read as proof of imminent escalation. It is, however, a reminder that Russia is sustaining a parallel strategic effort focused on training, dispersal drills, and signaling around systems meant to shape NATO risk calculations. For defense planners, the Siberian patrols are less about Ukraine and more about the wider map: preserving a survivable nuclear retaliatory capability, complicating surveillance and targeting, and demonstrating that even in wartime Moscow continues to prioritize forces designed for the highest rung of deterrence.