The Russian military has announced massive drills of its strategic forces, a stark reminder of the country’s nuclear might amid Western fears that Moscow might be preparing to invade Ukraine.
The defence ministry said Russian president Vladimir Putin will personally oversee the exercise on Saturday, which will involve multiple practice launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles and cruise missiles.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Mr Putin would observe the drills from the Defence Ministry’s situation room and supervise the practice missile launches himself.
The ministry said it planned the manoeuvres some time ago to check the readiness of Russia’s military command and personnel, as well as the reliability of its nuclear and conventional weapons.
The war games follow US president Joe Biden’s warning on Thursday that Russia could invade Ukraine within days.
Western fears focus on an estimated 150,000 Russian troops – including about 60% of Russia’s overall ground forces – concentrated near Ukraine’s borders. The Kremlin insists it has no plans to invade.
But Moscow has demanded that the US and its allies keep Ukraine and other ex-Soviet nations out of Nato, not deploy weapons in Ukraine and pull back Nato forces from Eastern Europe.
Washington and its allies bluntly rejected the Russian demands, and Moscow threatened to take unspecified “military-technical measures” if the West continues to stonewall.
Russia holds massive drills of its strategic nuclear forces on an annual basis, but the manoeuvres planned for Saturday pointedly involve the Black Sea Fleet.
The fleet is based on the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
The Black Sea Fleet has surface warships and submarines equipped with Kalibr cruise missiles, but it does not have intercontinental ballistic missiles and did not take part in similar previous drills of the country’s strategic forces.
Mr Peskov said Russia notified foreign partners in advance and the exercise should not cause worries in the West.
“Practice launches of ballistic missiles are part of regular training,” he said. “They are preceded by a series of notices to other nations via different channels.”
The strategic forces of both Russia and the United States include a nuclear triad of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-based ICBMs and nuclear-capable bombers.
The exercise of Russia’s nuclear forces follows a series of sweeping drills that the Russian military held near Ukraine and in Belarus, an ally of Moscow that neighbours Ukraine to the north.
The Russian military said it started pulling troops back to their permanent bases after the drill. The US and its allies questioned the claim and said that Moscow has actually moved thousands of new troops closer to Ukraine.
Moscow argued that the pullback takes time and rejected Western criticism, saying that it would deploy troops wherever it is necessary to ensure national security.
