By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
President Dmitry Medvedev watched a missile soar from Russia's rain-soaked northern forests toward a target thousands of kilometers away on Sunday, capping a weekend of launches reminding audiences at home and abroad about the country's nuclear might.
Prominent coverage of the tests on state-controlled television also seemed designed to boost the bookish Medvedev's credentials as commander-in-chief in the eyes of the Russian populace.
On Sunday, Medvedev saw what officials said was the successful test-firing of a 21-year-old Topol intercontinental ballistic missile. The missile hit its target thousands of kilometers to the east on the Kamchatka Peninsula, Medvedev told servicemen who conducted the launch.
"Respected comrades ... you have fulfilled your task and I congratulate you," Medvedev, dressed in a dark bomber jacket, told servicemen in bulky blue uniforms in a clearing near the Plesetsk launch facility.
The tests come amid increasingly strained ties with the United States following the war with Georgia and persistent Russian opposition to US plans for a missile-defense system based in Poland and the Czech Republic, former Soviet satellites now in NATO.
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