Medvedev at firing of long-range missile

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev oversaw the test firing of an intercontinental Topol missile yesterday and vowed to commission new generation weapons for Russia's armed forces.

A reporter said the truck-mounted Topol was fired at 0723 GMT in drizzling rain from the Plesetsk cosmodrome, which is nestled among the taiga forests of Russia's north.

Half an hour later it hit the Kura testing site, 6,000 km away on the Kamchatka peninsula in the Pacific.