NEW JAPANESE RADAR TRACKS MYSTERIOUS TEST OF RUSSIAN MISSLE

A new Japanese ballistic missile defense radar successfully tracked a Russian strategic missile test this weekend, UPI quoted local officials as saying. Russia did not announce any missile launches, however.

A prototype FPS-XX radar, designed and built by the Japanese Defense Agency’s Technical Research & Development Institute, monitored the test firing of a ballistic missile launched from a Russian nuclear-powered submarine in the Sea of Okhotsk 1,000 miles to the northeast. The radar then tracked the missile’s flight for thousands of miles across northern Russia to the Barents Sea in the Arctic Ocean, the Defense Agency said.

However, Russia’s last missile launch from the Okhotsk area was on Sept. 30. The RSM-50 missile was launched from the St. George the Victorious submarine and hit a target on the island of Kanin in the White Sea. No other launches have been announced, although the information is not secret.

Japan says that radars — able, according to a report, to track secret missile operations — will be deployed at four sites across the country after 2008. Together with the X-band radar — the U.S. forces’ mobile early warning radar system — and other equipment, the FPS-XX radar system is a major part of Japan’s rapidly expanding defense system.

Russia and Japan have not yet signed a peace treaty ending hostilities from World War II.