Mystery surrounds Russian missile exercises

Mystery surrounded huge military exercises in Arctic Russia attended by President Vladimir Putin yesterday with some navy sources saying a planned missile launch had failed while top brass denied any incident had occurred.

Navy commander Vladimir Kuroyedov said there had been no plans to launch any missiles at all.

The initial report, carried by two Russian news agencies, quoted an unnamed source in the Northern Fleet command as saying the launch of two ballistic missiles from a submarine in the Barents Sea had failed.

The source said the incident, which may have been caused by a military satellite blocking the launch signal, did not lead to any serious consequences for the Novomoskovsk nuclear submarine.

"The causes and circumstances of the occurrence are being pinpointed. The Novomoskovsk has returned to base," the source, speaking in the Northern Fleet base of Severomorsk, was quoted as saying by Interfax news agency.

The intercontinental PCM-54 missiles, belonging to the Skiff class under Nato's classification, were part of the old Soviet Union's cold war stock of rockets capable of striking US territory.