Russia flexes muscles with volley of missile tests

By Dmitry Solovyov

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia test-fired two ballistic missiles and bombed a dummy town at the weekend, but analysts said the show of military preparedness was for domestic consumption and not a Kremlin warning shot to the West.

The exercises -- some overseen by President Dmitry Medvedev and all given extensive coverage on national television -- followed weeks of angry rhetoric between Russia and the United States over the August war in Georgia.

On Saturday, Medvedev watched the successful launch of a Sineva intercontinental missile from a submarine in the Arctic Barents Sea. It hit a virtual target near the Equator in the Pacific Ocean, the first flight at this range.

The next day, Medvedev inspected the Plesetsk military cosmodrome in the north-west of Russia where he watched the test-launch of a Topol nuclear-capable missile which hit a target on Russia's Pacific coast.

Over the course of the weekend, 12 Tu-160 and Tu-95MS strategic bombers took off for an exercise that involved launching multiple cruise missiles to pulverise a dummy town on a testing ground in the Arctic.

The scale and intensity of the exercises was unusual but they proved little to potential adversaries about Russia's military capability, said analyst Stanislav Belkovsky.

"The Kremlin staged this showy ... PR campaign to distract public attention from the financial crisis and tell the people, 'Look, we still have achievements in the military sector'," said Belkovsky, head of the National Strategy Institute think tank.

Russian stocks recorded their worst weekly performance for a decade last week and are now down 66 percent from their peak in May. The impact is slowly starting to filter through to the real economy, with some firms announcing lay-offs.