The Russian military last week conducted an extensive military exercise that included test firing nuclear-capable ballistic missiles amid growing tensions with the West over Ukraine.
The Kremlin said in a statement that Russian President Vladimir Putin observed the exercises from a monitor in Moscow. These exercises included its nuclear triad: aircraft, submarines, and ground-based launchers.
The New York Times, citing the Russian military, reported that the Yars intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) was fired from a military base on the Kamchatka Peninsula—which is near Alaska—and from warships located in the Arctic Ocean. Additional ICBMs were launched from the Novomoskovsk and Knyaz Oleg nuclear submarines.
EuroNews noted that the Russian military also carried out practice launches of long-range cruise missiles from Tu-95 strategic bombers.
Moscow said all missiles hit their intended targets.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been urging Western leaders to approve its use of long-range missiles to strike targets deep inside Russia. These missiles—provided by the U.S., U.K., and France were the centerpiece of this so-called “Victory Plan,” which received lukewarm reactions in the West.
Putin said recently that the Russian defense ministry “is thinking about how to respond to the possible long-range strikes on Russian territory.”
“It will offer a range of responses,” he said, according to Politico.
Andrei Belousov, the Russian defense minister, said the purpose of the exercise was to practice delivering a “massive nuclear strike by strategic offensive forces in response to a nuclear strike by the enemy.”
Putin said the decision to start the drills was because of the “emergence of new external threats and risks.”
“We have no interest in being sucked into a new arms race, however, we will maintain our nuclear forces at an adequate level of preparation,” he said, according to the Times. “We will continue to perfect all of their components. We have the resources for it.”
Scott Ritter, the former UN weapons inspector, said Russia’s decision to conduct the exercise is a reminder to the West that its response will be severe if Ukraine gets the approval to use long-range missiles to strike targets deep inside Russia.
“The only hope that Ukraine has is that it will get permission to use long-range weapons, and Russia has already told the West what the consequences of that will be, and I think this current nuclear exercise just proves that,” he told the “Dialogue Works” podcast.
He said the Russians put the marker down to the West that any country that approves these weapons to be used, you become a party to the conflict and Russia will “hold you accountable up to and including using weapons against your soil and those weapons may be nuclear in nature if you want to take it that route. And 72 minutes after the first nuclear weapons used, we’re all dead.”
He said Russia’s simply reminding us that “they’re not joking.”
“Russia’s won this war. There’s nothing we can do to stop this. But if we want to escalate, then Russia will tell us what the price of escalation will be. And that will be a nuclear war, and we’ll all die,” he said.
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