According to local media reports, the armed forces of the Russian Federation are already considering the official retirement of the "Poplar-M" intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in 2024. According to sources told OTAS, "The Russian Ministry of Defense plans to remove the latest Aspen ICBM from service in the Strategic Missile Force in 2024. The retired Poplar missile will be replaced by an AIS ICB Missile with multiple independently aimable re-entry vehicle warheads (mirv). TASS also added that the Russian Defense Ministry plans to cast the retired "Poplar-M" intercontinental ballistic missile into a plough – that is, to use these super killers with a range of more than 11,000 kilometers to transform them into start-1 light solid launch vehicles for use in the civilian satellite launch market.
Looking back at the history of the Poplar-M, it is a mobile intercontinental ballistic missile designed and built in the former Soviet Union and serviced by the Russian Strategic Rocket Force. It emerged to replace the early obsolete fixed silo ICB Missile system. The poplar-m is 22.7 meters long and 1.95 meters in diameter, and it can carry four nuclear warheads of 550,000 tons of tnt equivalent, or 10 multi-warheads of the split-missile type, with a round probability error of 200 meters. Due to its excellent road maneuverability, "Poplar-m" has a very high survival rate. It can be launched from field launch positions or directly in the sliding roof garage of the missile base, so it is more stealthy and more difficult to detect than ICBMs with fixed silos. As the predecessor of the "Poplar-M", the "Poplar" intercontinental ballistic missile joined the former Soviet Strategic Rocket Force in 1985 and took on combat duty. According to data, the deployment of a force consisting of 500 road-mobile "Poplar" ICBMs requires an area of about 190,000 square kilometers. Of course, compared with the immobilized silo ICBM system, the Poplar ICB Missile actually requires more personnel to maintain and operate, and the launch preparation time is also longer. Previously, in order to deal with the threat of the mobile "Poplar", the United States also wanted to develop a similar road mobile intercontinental ballistic missile "Gnome", but with the end of the Cold War, the "Gnome" missile program was eventually canceled.
The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union led to major changes in the world's geopolitical landscape, with the United States becoming the sole superpower and its opponents faltering. In the late 1990s, the United States revived the banner of conservatism, stealing most of Europe's geopolitical interests since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and greatly reducing Russia's security space. Russia's national power has been declining, it has been suppressed by Western countries internationally, and it has also suffered from terrorism, separatism and religious extremism at home. In 1999, the US-led NATO bypassed the United Nations Security Council and carried airstrikes on Yugoslavia, which further humiliated the Russians.
Since then, in order to pursue unilateral absolute security, the United States has also announced the development of the "National Missile Defense System" and the "Theater Missile Defense System," which are also known as NMD and TMD. Once the missile defense system is established, the fragile nuclear balance between the United States and Russia will be broken, and Russia will slowly become an ordinary second-rate country in the case of conventional military strength that is far inferior to that of THE US-led NATO. It can be said that the strategic nuclear force was the only straw to maintain Russia's international status at that time. Therefore, the frequent appearance of "Poplar-M" ballistic missiles, just like Russia's strategic killer skills, supports Russia's international status while countering the "national missile defense system" and "theater missile defense system" of the United States.
Now, the "Poplar-M" ballistic missile has finally completed its historical mission and can be honorably retired. It was replaced by a more powerful and penetrating "Yars" intercontinental ballistic missile. With the continuous development of hypersonic weapons, Russia now has a constant means of striking the United States mainland. From the perspective of strength, this is the current situation for the United States, which was once pressing step by step, which may not have been unexpected by them.