Via AFP:
Russia informed the United States in advance that it would carry out a launch Tuesday of an intercontinental ballistic missile, US officials said, downplaying the test amid tensions with Moscow.
The ICBM launch was routine and the US government was notified "before the crisis started in Ukraine," a senior defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP.
The test launch came at a moment of high tension between Russia and the West over Ukraine, where the Crimean peninsula has been put under de facto control by Kremlin-backed troops.
But US officials declined to comment ...
