The R-12 Dvina was a theatre ballistic missile developed and deployed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

[5] As well as the single-stage ballistic technology, the R-12 Dvina had a two-stage capability that allowed payloads to be placed into low Earth orbit.

[6] OKB-586 formed from a spin-off of portions of Sergei Korolev's OKB-1 production infrastructure under the direction of Mikhail Yangel in the early 1950s.

Soon after, he started the development of an improved strategic missile that would outperform the R-5, that Korolev was in the process of bringing into production.

The R-11 was a short-range missile that used nitric acid as an oxidizer and kerosene as a fuel and could be stored for extended periods of time.

Valentin Glushko had long advocated using storable propellants, and proposed developing a new engine for the project.

The R-5, for instance, used an inertial guidance system that had to be "fine tuned" by commands from ground radio stations that it passed over during its flight.

Pilyugin felt that newer inertial systems would have the accuracy needed to hit targets at 2,000 km without the mid-course updates.

According to the official NPO Yuzhnoye history, Yangel's design was approved on 13 February 1953 by the Council of Ministers of the USSR.

In September 1958, Nikita Khrushchev personally visited Kapustin Yar to witness the launch of R-12, as well as its competitor, the R-5M.

The R-12 missile was introduced into the inventory on 4 March 1959 according to Russian sources, though Western intelligence believed that an initial operational capability was reached in late 1958.

The first public display of this system was in November 1960, and they were deployed to Cuba in October 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The fundamental purpose of the INF Treaty was to eliminate and ban US and Soviet ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as associated support equipment, with ranges between 500 and 5500 kilometers.

On March 16, 1962, Kosmos 1, a navigation test satellite, was successfully orbited, marking the first Soviet space launch to be performed with a booster other than the R-7.

An enhanced R-12 booster was flown in 1965–67 from the Dvina silo at Kapustin Yar on suborbital tests, eventually giving way to the 11K63, a modernized, improved launch vehicle.

The propulsion system consists of four liquid propellant rocket motors with a common turbo pump unit.

The flight control was carried out with the help of four carbon jet vanes, located in the nozzles of the rocket motors.

Media related to R-12 at Wikimedia Commons Nuclear Threat Initiative − Russian Ballistic Missile Models