Russia has conducted exercises of its strategic deterrent forces involving test-launches of cruise and intercontinental ballistic missiles from air, sea, and ground platforms, the Defense Ministry has said.
The drills were announced by President Vladimir Putin just days after NATO staged its own nuclear exercises in Western Europe.
“In the course of the command and control exercise, the Armed Forces are working out the missions of inflicting a mass nuclear strike with strategic deterrent forces in response to an enemy atomic attack,” Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov said on Tuesday.
According to a statement from the Defense Ministry, the drills involved the launch of a Yars intercontinental ballistic missile from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome at the Kura test site in Kamchatka.
“Sineva and Bulava ballistic missiles were launched from the nuclear-powered strategic missile submarine Novomoskovsk in the Barents Sea and from the nuclear-powered submarine Knyaz Oleg in the Sea of Okhotsk,” the ministry added. “Tu-95MS long-range aircraft were also involved in the exercise, launching cruise missiles.”
The exercise was run from the National Defense Control Center and was intended to check the level of preparedness of the strategic deterrence forces, according to the ministry. All objectives were “completed in full, all missiles reached their targets,” the statement concluded.
Speaking about the drills earlier on Tuesday, Putin said nuclear weapons are “an extreme, exceptional measure to ensure state security.” He also revealed that the strategic deterrent force will soon receive new and updated missile launchers, submarines, and bombers.
“Given the growth of geopolitical tensions as well as the emergence of new external threats and risks, it is important to have modern strategic forces that are constantly ready for combat use,” the Russian president said.
Russia’s nuclear drills follow the NATO exercise ‘Steadfast Noon’, which began on October 14 and involved 13 members of the US-led bloc, around 2,000 military personnel, and 60 aircraft. The exercise trained European NATO members to deploy US-provided weapons under the bloc’s ‘nuclear sharing’ arrangement.
Proposed changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine which were unveiled last month would extend Moscow’s atomic umbrella to Belarus and define a conventional attack by a non-nuclear state – such as Ukraine – backed by nuclear powers as a “joint attack” that could trigger the use of the strategic deterrent.