Putin's show of strength triggers fear of fresh nuclear arms race

VLADIMIR Putin has sparked fears of a new arms race between Russia and the United States by deploying a nuclear ballistic strike force system that officials made clear could penetrate US anti- missile defences.

On Christmas Eve, the Russian army activated a new fleet of Topol-M missiles that can fit a nuclear warhead and travel 6,000 miles, changing trajectory to foil any enemy interception device.

The accompanying hawkish rhetoric of the Russian military commanders and the frenetic response of the US navy have stoked concern that the former Cold War adversaries have quietly resumed the arms race.

General Nikolai Solovtsov, commander of the Russian missile forces, has mobilised a new battalion for the Topol-M missiles, which have a capacity for a one megatonne impact - 75 times the power of the 1945 Hiroshima bomb.

Gen Solovtsov, a critic of US anti- missile defence technology, said the Topol-M missile "is capable of piercing any missile defence system" and is immune to electromagnetic blasts used by current US anti-missile systems.

While Russia had disbanded two missile divisions last year, it has now formed more than 20 new units - in the fastest increase of nuclear spending since the run-up to the Cuban missile crisis.

Last month, the US navy carried out its most ambitious and successful test of an anti-missile interceptor, which can be launched from an Aegis class cruiser in the Pacific Ocean. A warhead from an incoming rocket was destroyed 100 miles above sea level - the first time an anti- missile defence has succeeded, in tests, when launched from a ship.

Duncan Lamont, a British defence analyst and editor of Jane's Strategic Weapons Systems, said the new Topol missiles could evade the "ballistic missile defences currently being fielded in Alaska and California".

The roll-out of the Topol-M and the hawkish accompanying language mark the fastest expansion of nuclear missiles since the SS-18 and Pershing II technologies were rolled out a generation ago.

Since the last US-Russia arms control treaty was signed in 1993 in Moscow, Russia has struggled to fund technology to replace its ageing defence system. The budget dried up as the Russian economy suffered.

But now the economy is flush with new oil wealth, the nuclear missile programme has been revived and was last month allocated a 1 billion budget increase from the Kremlin. This has boosted Mr Putin's popularity.

Japan, growing anxious about a nuclear missile strike from North Korea, signed up to the American missile defence programme last week and allocated 14 million for joint research.

The Ukrainian government, elected last year in a part-protest against Moscow's influence, has asked to come back under the former Soviet military umbrella and be protected by the Topol-M stationed in the Volga river.

In September, Russia successfully tested a Bulava missile, a submarine-launched equivalent of the Topol-M. Launched from the White Sea, it hit its target 30 minutes later on Kamchatka, in the opposite, Far Eastern side of Russia.

The escalation in missile defence will pose difficult questions for Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, who must soon decide whether to renew Britain's trident nuclear deterrent. The case for not doing so is largely based on the pacification of post-Soviet Russia.

Relations with Mr Putin have been increasingly strained, as western leaders have criticised his heavy-handed style, his imprisonment of political opponents and slow pace towards democratising the country.

The European Union has condemned Mr Putin's decision to sell anti-aircraft missiles to Iran, whose new president last month spoke of his desire to "wipe Israel off the map". Iran says it wants to buy Russian nuclear energy next.

Russia takes over the year-long G8 presidency from Britain in January. Mr Putin has made his theme security of energy supply - which marries concern over Iraq with the Kremlin's concerns about its control of Caspian oil reserves.