To dissuade the West, Putin authorizes tactical nuclear weapon drills

As part of a military drill, Russia announced on Monday that it would practice deploying tactical nuclear weapons in response to threats it claimed came from the United States, France, and Britain.

Russia has warned of growing nuclear hazards ever since it invaded Ukraine in 2022. The US believes it must heed these warnings seriously, even though US officials claim they have not observed any shift in Russia’s nuclear posture.

Russia claims that by arming Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars’ worth of weaponry, some of which are being used against Russian territory, the US and its European allies are bringing the world to the verge of a nuclear conflict between nuclear powers.

The Russian Ministry of Defense said that it will conduct military exercises that would involve training for the deployment and setup of non-strategic nuclear weapons. It said that President Vladimir Putin had given the order for the drills.

According to the ministry, a series of exercises would be conducted to rehearse the planning and deployment of non-strategic nuclear weapons.

According to the defense ministry, participation will come from the navy, aircraft, and missile units in the Southern Military District.

It stated that the exercise is being conducted “in response to provocative statements and threats by certain Western officials against the Russian Federation” with the goal of safeguarding Russia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.

With about 10,600 of the 12,100 nuclear weapons in the world, the United States and Russia are by far the two largest nuclear powers in the world. China is the third-largest nuclear weaponry owner, behind the United Kingdom and France.

The Federation of American Scientists estimates that Russia possesses 1,558 non-strategic nuclear warheads, while precise numbers for these weapons are unknown because of a lack of transparency.

Since the United States launched the first atomic bomb attacks on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, no other nation has used nuclear weapons in a war.

Large nuclear nations periodically test their arsenals, but they hardly ever openly associate these drills with particular threats, unlike Russia.

nuclear dangers

President of the United States Joe Biden stated last year that he did not believe there was a serious chance that Russia would use nuclear weapons, but CNN revealed that senior American officials have prepared for the possibility of a Russian nuclear strike against Ukraine in 2022.

Although the Kremlin has consistently stated that it would consider breaking the nuclear taboo if Russia’s existence was threatened, some Western and Ukrainian officials have claimed that Russia is bluffing about nuclear weapons to terrify the West.

A representative for Ukrainian military intelligence, Andriy Yusov, stated, “We do not see anything new here.” “Nuclear blackmail is a constant practice of Putin’s regime.”

The defense ministry, headed by Sergei Shoigu, a staunch supporter of Vladimir Putin, did not name the exact Western officials in its statement.

According to the Kremlin, it was in response to statements made by US Senate candidate, British officials, and French President Emmanuel Macron.

While British Foreign Secretary David Cameron stated that Ukraine had a right to use the weaponry provided by London to strike targets within Russia, Macron publicly floated the notion of sending European troops to combat Russia in Ukraine.

According to Dmitry Peskov, the spokesman for the Kremlin, Western remarks regarding the deployment of NATO soldiers to Ukraine represent “a completely new round of escalation of tension – it is unprecedented, and of course it requires special attention and special measures”.

In March, Putin issued a warning to the West, claiming that few people desired a direct confrontation between Russia and the NATO military alliance, which is led by the United States, and that doing so would bring the world closer to a third World War.