Putin orders tactical nuclear weapon drills
Exercises ‘in response to provocative statements’
MOSCOW – Russia said on Monday it would practice the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons as part of a military exercise after what the Moscow said were threats from France, Britain and the United States.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Russia has repeatedly warned of rising nuclear risks – warnings which the United States says it has to take seriously though U.S. officials say they have seen no change in Russia’s nuclear posture.
Russia says the United States and its European allies are pushing the world to the brink of confrontation between nuclear powers by supporting Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars of weapons, some of which are being used against Russian territory.
Russia’s defense ministry said it would hold military drills including practice for the preparation and deployment for use of non-strategic nuclear weapons. It said the exercises were ordered by President Vladimir Putin.
“During the exercise, a set of measures will be carried out to practice the issues of preparation and use of nonstrategic nuclear weapons,” the ministry said.
Missile forces in the Southern Military District, aviation and the navy will take part, the defense ministry said.
The exercise is aimed at ensuring Russia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty “in response to provocative statements and threats by certain Western officials against the Russian Federation,” it said.
Russia and the United States are by far the world’s biggest nuclear powers, holding more than 10,600 of the world’s 12,100 nuclear warheads. China has the third-largest nuclear arsenal, followed by France and Britain.
Major nuclear powers routinely check their nuclear weapons but very rarely publicly link such exercises to specific perceived threats in the way that Russia has.President Joe Biden said last year that he felt there was no real prospect of Russia using nuclear weapons but CNN reported that top U.S. officials did contingency planning for a potential Russian nuclear strike against Ukraine in 2022.
Some Western and Ukrainian officials have said Russia is bluffing over nuclear weapons to scare the West, though the Kremlin has repeatedly indicated that it would consider breaking the nuclear taboo if Russia’s existence was threatened.
The defense ministry, run by long-term Putin ally Sergei Shoigu, did not say which specific Western officials it was referring to in its statement. The Kremlin said it was in response to remarks by French President Emmanuel Macron, British officials and a representative of the U.S. Senate.
Macron has in public raised the idea of sending European troops to fight Russia in Ukraine while British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said that Ukraine had a right to use the weapons provided by London to strike targets inside Russia.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Western statements about sending NATO soldiers to Ukraine amounted to “a completely new round of escalation of tension – it is unprecedented, and of course it requires special attention and special measures.”
Putin warned the West in March that a direct conflict between Russia and the U.S.-led NATO military alliance would mean the planet was one step away from World War Three but said hardly anyone wanted such a scenario.
NATO is currently holding the “Steadfast Defender” exercise, its largest since the end of the Cold War. NATO has not said whether it would include rehearsal of any nuclear element.