Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a massive exercise on Tuesday the country’s nuclear forces featuring missile launches in a simulated retaliatory strike, as he continued to assert the country’s nuclear power amid growing tensions with the West over Ukraine.
Speaking in a video call with military leaders, Putin said the exercises would simulate the action of senior officials using nuclear weapons and include launches of nuclear-capable ballistic and cruise missiles.
Defense Minister Andrei Belousov said the exercise was aimed at practicing “strategic offensive forces launching a massive nuclear strike in response to an enemy nuclear strike.”
Putin, who has repeatedly said brandished the nuclear sword as he seeks to dissuade the West from increasing its support for Ukraine, he stressed Tuesday that Russia’s nuclear arsenal remains a “reliable guarantor of the country’s sovereignty and security.”
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“Given the growing geopolitical tensions and new emerging threats and risks, it is important for us to have modern strategic forces, always ready for combat,” he said, reaffirming that Russia considers the use of nuclear weapons as “the ultimate and extreme measure to guarantee one’s safety.
Putin noted that Moscow would continue to modernize its nuclear forces, deploying new missiles with greater precision, faster launch times and increased capabilities to defeat missile defenses.
As part of Tuesday’s exercises, the army conducted a test firing of a Yars intercontinental ballistic missile from the Plesetsk launch pad at the Kura test range on the Kamchatka Peninsula, indicated the Ministry of Defense. Novomoskovsk and Knyaz Oleg nuclear submarines tested ICBMs from the Barents Sea and the Sea of Okhotsk, while nuclear-capable Tu-95 strategic bombers conducted long-range cruise missile training firings .
The ministry said all missiles hit their designated targets.
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Last month, the Russian leader warned the United States and its NATO allies that allowing Ukraine to use long-range weapons supplied by the West for strikes deep inside the Russia would put NATO at war against its country.
He reinforced his message by announcing a new version of nuclear doctrine that considers a conventional attack on Russia by a non-nuclear nation backed by a nuclear power to be a joint attack on his country – a clear warning to the United States and others allies of Russia. kyiv.
Putin also said the revised document envisaged the possible use of nuclear weapons in the event of a massive air attack, leaving the door open for a potential nuclear response to any air attack – an ambiguity intended to deter the West.
Tuesday’s maneuvers follow a series of other exercises by Russian nuclear forces.
Earlier this year, the Russian military held a joint nuclear exercise with Moscow’s ally Belarus, which hosted some of Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons.
In March 2023, after the UK’s decision to supply armor-piercing shells containing depleted uranium to Ukraine, Putin said he would deploy tactical weapons. nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus neighboring Ukraine. The president of that country, a close ally of Putin, then claimed – without providing evidence – that Russian nuclear weapons “three times more powerful” than those used against Japan by the United States during World War II had been deployed in Belarus.
Also in March 2023, Putin declared that Russia’s nuclear triad – its three-pronged arsenal of weapons launched from land, sea and air – was “much more” advanced than that of the United States.
“Our triad, the nuclear triad, is more modern than any other triad. Only we and the Americans have such triads. And we have made much more progress here,” Putin said in an interview on state television.