Russia fired missiles thousands of kilometres away on Tuesday, the 29th of October, to simulate a “massive” nuclear response to an enemy first strike, reports Reuters.
“Given the growing geopolitical tensions and the emergence of new external threats and risks, it is important that strategic forces are modern and always ready for use,” President Vladimir Putin said when announcing the exercise.
Defence Minister Andrei Belousov said on television that
the aim of the exercise is to train “strategic offensive forces in the execution of a massive nuclear strike in response to an enemy nuclear strike”.
The exercise involved the entire Russian nuclear “triad” of land, sea and air-launched missiles.
The Yars intercontinental ballistic missile was launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in north-west Russia towards Kamchatka, a peninsula in the Far East. The Sineva and Bulava ballistic missiles were fired from submarines and the cruise missiles from strategic bombers, the defence ministry said.
For the second time this year, Putin is rehearsing the start of a nuclear war
The Russian military has held another large-scale exercise on the use of nuclear weapons. During the exercises, a scenario of a full-fledged nuclear war was practiced: the enemy strikes Russian… pic.twitter.com/yYB9ke7dpF
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) October 29, 2024
The two-and-a-half-year war has entered its most dangerous phase, Russian officials say, as the West thinks how to shore up Ukraine’s support while Russian forces advance in the country’s east.
Putin said the use of nuclear weapons would be an ” extraordinary exceptional measure”.
“I stress that we will not engage in a new arms race, but we will maintain our nuclear forces at a level that is considered sufficient,” he said.
He added that Russia was moving to new “fixed and mobile missile systems” that have shorter launch preparation times and could overcome missile defence systems.
Since the outbreak of the war, Putin has been sending signals to the West by changing Russia’s position on nuclear treaties, deploying tactical nuclear missiles in Belarus and expanding nuclear scenarios to include attacks on Russia supported by nuclear powers, effectively warning the US not to support Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory.
Putin has said that Russia does not need nuclear weapons to win in Ukraine, even though it has the world’s largest nuclear arsenal alongside the US, controlling 88% of nuclear warheads.
Although the US has not seen a change in Russia’s nuclear posture, it has previously warned Putin against the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine.