§ Mr. Terlezkiasked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will estimate the number of Soviet missile warheads deployed against western Europe in 1973, 1978 and 1983.
§ Mr. StanleyIn 1973 there were about 600 single warhead intermediate range SS4s and SS5s deployed facing western Europe. In 1978 there were 500 SS4s and SS5s plus 90 SS20 warheads. By 1983 the continuing replacement of SS4s and SS5s with SS20 missiles, each carrying three warheads, resulted in nearly 1,000 Soviet intermediate range warheads deployed with western Europe in range. Some three quarters of these were SS20s. In addition, the Soviet Union has over 1,300 nuclear-capable shorter range missile launchers, most of which could be equipped with refire missiles, deployed in eastern Europe and the western part of the Soviet Union and also many thousands of submarine and ground-launched strategic ballistic missile warheads which could be deployed against western Europe.
§ Mr. Terlezkiasked the Secretary of State for Defence whether Her Majesty's Government regard the construction of a new SS20 missile base by the Union of Soviet 493W Socialist Republics as a breach of the moratorium announced by the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics in March 1982.
§ Mr. StanleyThe Soviet Union announced last November at the time of its withdrawal from the INF negotiations that it was rescinding its moratorium announced in March 1982 on the deployment of additional SS20s in the western USSR. Construction of a new SS20 base in the western USSR has now started. Construction of additional SS20 bases in the eastern USSR continues.
§ Mr. Terlezkiasked the Secretary of State for Defence if he will estimate what percentage of Union of Soviet Socialist Republic SS20s is aimed at western Europe; and what proportion is capable of reaching targets in the United Kingdom.
§ Mr. StanleyOf the 378 SS20s currently deployed, each with three independently targettable warheads, a total of 243 or approximately two thirds are based in the western part of the Soviet Union. These SS20s with their 729 warheads can strike almost any part of western Europe including in nearly all cases the whole of the United Kingdom.