With tensions over a possible invasion of Ukraine at an all-time high, Russia’s president monitors the commencement of military exercises involving Moscow’s strategic nuclear missiles.
As Europe grapples with its biggest crisis since the Cold War, missile forces are being deployed.
During the exercises, Russia successfully test-fired hypersonic and cruise missiles against marine and land-based targets, according to the Kremlin.
Accident or a Mistake
The Kremlin stated two ballistic missiles were launched, one from a point in northwest Russia and the other from a submarine in the Barents Sea, both hitting targets thousands of kilometers away in Kamchatka’s far east peninsula.
The Russian news agency RIA broadcast footage of a split-screen of numerous top military officials, as well as Putin, who ordered the drills to take place.
The Kremlin has maintained the drills are part of a routine training process and that they do not indicate a worsening of the standoff.
The nuclear drills, according to US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, are causing alarm among world leaders because Russia’s military is focusing on a large buildup of forces around Ukraine.
“When you layer on top of that a very sophisticated exercise with strategic nuclear forces that makes things complicated to the degree that you could have an accident or a mistake,” he said.
‘Guaranteed defeat’
The drills come after a massive series of maneuvers by Russia’s armed forces over the last four months, including a buildup of troops – believed by the West to number 150,000 or more – to the north, east, and south of Ukraine.
Putin and other top officials routinely mention Russia’s status as one of the world’s foremost nuclear powers, alongside the United States.
The drills, according to Moscow-based analysts, were intended to send a message to NATO that it should take Russia’s demands for security assurances seriously following the alliance’s extension to Russia’s borders since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
“The signal to the West is not so much ‘don’t interfere’, but instead designed to say that the problem is not Ukraine and actually much wider,” Dmitry Stefanovich, a research fellow at the IMEMO RAS think-tank, told the Reuters news agency.
The formation of a battlegroup
On Saturday, Ukraine’s military forces accused the rebels of launching a new round of attacks, saying dozens of exchanges of fire had occurred by 7:00 a.m. (04:00 GMT), with one soldier dying from shrapnel wounds.
The soldier, a captain in an intelligence squad, was the fourth Ukrainian soldier to die this year in the first seven weeks. According to government sources, at least 66 people were killed in 2021.
The rebels, who also blamed Ukrainian forces for further attacks on Saturday, called for widespread mobilization in both districts, enlisting men to fight while also announcing mass evacuations of women and children to Russia.
On Saturday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg stated that Russia was well aware that the union would be unable to meet its demands, which include the withdrawal of NATO forces from former communist Eastern European governments that have chosen to join the alliance.