The R-5 Pobeda[2] (Побе́да, "Victory") was a medium range ballistic missile developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

With its range (five times that of the R-1; more than twice that of the R-2[3]: 48–49 ), accuracy, and atomic armament, the R-5M was the Soviet Union's first real strategic missile,[1] carrying a nuclear warhead yielding at least 80 kilotons (kt).

Korolev's next design, the 27 m (89 ft)-long, 3,000 km (1,900 mi) range R-3, was a bold step forward in the fulfillment of Josef Stalin's 1947 request for a "transatlantic" Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM).

By far the largest and costliest ballistic missile program in the USSR to date, its innovations were to include fuel and oxidizer tanks that were integral to (not separate from) the frame of the rocket.

As a result, in the spring of 1951, Korolev revised his plans to instead concentrate on an easier stepping stone toward an ICBM.

Using the RD-103 engine, a evolution of the RD-101 used in the R-2 missile, and by reducing the weight of the rocket through use of integrated tankage (while at the same time increasing propellant load by 60% over the R-2), the R-5 would have a range of 1,200 km (750 mi).

Other innovations over the R-1/R-2 included small aerodynamic rudders run by servomotors to replace the big fins of the R-1/R-2, and longitudinal acceleration integrators to improve the precision of engine cutoff and thus accuracy.

[4]: 120, 138  One issue that surfaced in this final round of testing was an increasing vibration of the control fins during flight, caused by flexing of the long rocket as it traveled.

This problem had been unknown on the shorter R-1 and R-2 rockets, and it posed a potential hazard to the structural integrity of the missile.

[3]: 285  In 1959, the R-5M was installed at Vogelsang, Zehdenick and Fürstenberg/Havel in East Germany, the first Soviet nuclear missile bases outside the USSR.