Putin ups ante with Russian nuke drills
MOSCOW: Russia’s strategic forces have carried out drills including a test launch of a ballistic missile from a submarine, further stoking concerns that a nuclear weapon could be deployed in the Ukraine war.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday (local time) surveyed the drills carried out by his nuclear-capable forces as Moscow persisted in claiming, without offering evidence, that Kyiv was developing a “dirty bomb”.
On Monday the Russian foreign ministry posted photographs of ostensible nuclear materials on social media it said depicted “Ukraine’s capacities to create the ‘dirty bomb’”. But Slovenia later said the photo came from its own nuclear waste management agency and dated to 2010.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, meanwhile, said fighting remained intense in the eastern Donbas region near Bakhmut, a town that Russia’s elite Wagner troops have made a concerted push to seize.
“The situation on the front line hasn’t changed significantly,” Mr Zelensky said in his daily address. “The fiercest battles are in the Donetsk region, towards Bakhmut and Avdiyivka.”
In the main southern front, Russians were apparently fortifying their positions in Kherson city as civilians were evacuating the region.
At least 70,000 people have left their homes in Kherson province in the space of a week, a Moscow-installed official, Vladimir Saldo, told a regional TV channel.
Pro-Kremlin authorities have sought to move residents to the Russian-controlled areas on the left bank of the Dnipro river, as Ukraine troops are expected to make a bid for the main urban area on the right bank.
Mr Saldo banned entry to the right bank area of the region for a period of seven days “due to the tense situation on the contact line”.
Western officials, meanwhile, downplayed the Kremlin’s war games, a regular event for which Moscow gave advance warning.
“Under the leadership of … Vladimir Putin, a training session was held with ground, sea and air strategic deterrence forces, during which practical launches of ballistic and cruise missiles took place,” the Kremlin said.
Russian state-run media ran footage of a submarine crew preparing the launch of a Sineva ballistic missile from the Barents Sea in the Arctic.
The drills also included launching test missiles from the Kamchatka peninsula in the Russian Far East.
In calls to Chinese and Indian correspondents, Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu continued to press his allegations that Ukraine planned to detonate a “dirty bomb” – a crude, small weapon filled with radioactive, biological or chemical materials – which it would blame on Russia.
Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said in his call with Mr Shoigu, he “pointed out that the nuclear option should not be resorted to by any side as the prospect of the usage of nuclear or radiological weapons goes against the basic tenets of humanity”.
Meanwhile, the UN culture agency UNESCO said it was using before-and-after satellite imagery to monitor the cultural destruction inflicted by Russia’s war in Ukraine, and would make its tracking platform public soon.
UNESCO said it had verified damage to 207 cultural sites in Ukraine.