Putin orders tactical nuclear weapons drills to deter West | Wilnesh News

Russia said on Monday it would practice deploying tactical nuclear weapons in military exercises after Moscow said it was threatened by France, Britain and the United States.

Russia has repeatedly warned of rising nuclear risks since its invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — warnings the United States says must be taken seriously, but U.S. officials say they have not seen any changes 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 providing tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons to Ukraine, some of which have been used to attack Russian territory.

The Russian Defense Ministry said it would hold military exercises, including exercises on preparation and deployment of non-strategic nuclear weapons. The exercise was allegedly ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“During the exercise, a series of measures will be taken to practice the preparation and use of non-strategic nuclear weapons,” the Ministry of National Defense said.

The Defense Ministry said the missile force, aviation and navy of the Southern Military District will participate.

The statement said the exercise was aimed at ensuring Russia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty “in response to provocative statements and threats made by certain Western officials against the Russian Federation.”

Russia and the United States are by far the world’s largest nuclear-armed states, possessing more than 10,600 of the world’s 12,100 nuclear warheads. China has the third largest nuclear arsenal, followed by France and the United Kingdom.

According to Russian statistics, Russia has approximately 1,558 non-strategic nuclear warheads Federation of American Scientists, open a new tabBut the exact number of such weapons is uncertain due to a lack of transparency.

Since the United States launched the first atomic bombs against Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in 1945, no country has used nuclear weapons in war.

Major nuclear powers regularly inspect their nuclear weapons but rarely, as Russia does, publicly link such drills to specific perceived threats.

U.S. President Joe Biden said last year that he saw no real prospect of Russia using nuclear weapons, but CNN reported that senior U.S. officials did Emergency Plan, open a new tab Russia may launch a nuclear strike against Ukraine in 2022.

Some Western and Ukrainian officials say Russia is bluffing over nuclear weapons to scare the West, even though the Kremlin has repeatedly said it would consider breaking a nuclear taboo if Russia’s existence was threatened.

“We see nothing new here,” said Andrei Yusov, spokesman for Ukraine’s military intelligence service. “Nuclear deception is a consistent practice of the Putin regime.”

The Defense Ministry, led by Putin’s longtime ally Sergei Shoigu, did not identify the specific Western officials it was referring to in its statement.

The Kremlin said it was responding to remarks by French President Emmanuel Macron, British officials and U.S. Senate representatives.

Macron has publicly floated the idea of ​​sending European troops to Ukraine to fight Russia, while British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said: Ukraine has the right Use weapons provided by London to strike targets in Russia.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the West’s announcement about sending NATO troops to Ukraine amounted to “a new escalation of tensions – which is unprecedented and certainly 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 just one step away from achieving that goal. world war 3 But says almost no one wants such a scenario.

NATO was founded in 1949 to provide collective security against the Soviet Union and currently holds “staunch defender“This exercise is the largest since the end of the Cold War. NATO has not said whether it will conduct any nuclear exercises.

NATO’s nuclear command exercises in 1983 aroused concerns among senior Kremlin officials that the United States was preparing for a sudden nuclear attack.

Putin faces calls from some hardliners in Russia to change Russia’s policies nuclear doctrinewhich sets out the conditions for Russia to use nuclear weapons, although Putin said last year he saw no need to change.

Broadly speaking, the doctrine says such weapons would be used in response to an attack using nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction, or an attack using conventional weapons against Russia “when the existence of the nation is threatened.”

Putin sees the war as part of a centuries-long war with the West that he says has humiliated Russia by expanding NATO and encroaching on what Moscow considers Russia’s historical sphere of influence after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Russia.

Ukraine and its Western backers say the war is an imperial plunder by a corrupt dictatorship. Western leaders have vowed to work to defeat Russian forces in Ukraine while ruling out the deployment of any NATO personnel in the country.