Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered nuclear exercises “in the near future” involving troops based near Ukraine, in response to “threats” from Western leaders towards Moscow, the Defense Ministry announced on Monday .
“During the exercise, a series of measures will be taken to train in the preparation and use of non-strategic nuclear weapons,” the ministry said in a statement.
He added that the measure was taken “on the instructions of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation,” Vladimir Putin.
This training aims to “maintain the readiness” of the army to protect the country, “in response to the provocative statements and threats made against Russia by certain Western officials,” the ministry added.
This will involve the air force, the navy and forces from the Southern Military District, which is based very close to Ukraine and notably covers Ukrainian regions that Moscow claims to annex.
The date and location of these exercises have not been specified.
In October 2023, Russia announced that Vladimir Putin had supervised ballistic missile launches during military maneuvers aimed at simulating a “massive nuclear strike” in response by Moscow.
During these exercises, an Iars intercontinental ballistic missile was fired from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in northern Russia, and another Sineva ballistic missile from a submarine in the Barents Sea.
Their outfit was made public the same day that the upper house of the Russian Parliament, the Federation Council, approved the revocation of the ratification of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
Since the start of the conflict in Ukraine in February 2022, the president has blown hot and cold on the possible use of nuclear weapons.
Russia deployed tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, its closest ally and neighbor of the European Union, in the summer of 2023.
Russian nuclear doctrine provides for a “strictly defensive” use of atomic weapons, in the event of an attack on Russia with weapons of mass destruction or in the event of aggression with conventional weapons “threatening the very existence of State”.
