(Moscow) Russia carried out test firings of ballistic missiles on Wednesday aimed at preparing its forces for a “massive nuclear strike” in response, as it prepares to exit the treaty banning nuclear tests.
Senior Russian officials have repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons since the start of the conflict in Ukraine in February 2022. On other occasions, Vladimir Putin, for his part, wanted to be reassuring on this subject.
The Russian president on Wednesday oversaw the exercises which involved the firing of an Iars intercontinental ballistic missile from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in the northwest and a Sineva ballistic missile from a submarine in the Barents Sea.
Long-range Tu-95MS aircraft also fired cruise missiles, which have a shorter range and were sometimes used in strikes in Ukraine.
“Under the leadership of the Supreme Commander of the Russian Armed Forces, Vladimir Putin, a training exercise was conducted […]. Training firings of ballistic and cruise missiles took place,” the Kremlin announced.
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu explained in his report that these maneuvers were aimed at simulating the “triggering of a massive nuclear strike by strategic offensive forces in response to an enemy nuclear strike.”
His ministry broadcast images on Telegram showing a missile flying into a night sky in a halo of light as well as a bomber taking off from a tarmac.
PHOTO RUSSIAN MINISTRY OF DEFENSE, PROVIDED BY AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
The firing of a Yars intercontinental ballistic missile from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in northern Russia
In a short extract provided by Russian public television, we see Vladimir Putin listening to the report from Sergei Shoigu and that of Chief of Staff Valery Gerasimov after these maneuvers.
Russian nuclear doctrine provides for a “strictly defensive” use of atomic weapons, in the event of an attack on Russia with weapons of mass destruction or in the event of aggression with conventional weapons “threatening the very existence of State “.
Abandonment of treaties
Wednesday’s exercises come public on the same day that Russia’s upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, approved the revocation of ratification of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
The senators voted for the text unanimously by 156 votes, thus paving the way for its promulgation by Vladimir Putin. There is little doubt about this, the Russian president having been at the origin of this measure.
For Moscow, the abandonment of this treaty aims to “restore strategic parity” with the United States, which never ratified it.
This revocation raises fears of an intensification of the arms race. Russia, since the breakup of the USSR, has not carried out such tests. The last, during the Soviet Union, dates back to 1990 and the last from the United States in 1992.
However, Vladimir Putin said at the beginning of October that he did not immediately know whether his country was going to resume nuclear testing.
Russia has already abandoned several nuclear disarmament treaties in recent years, including the landmark New Start agreement with the United States.
In the summer of 2023, it also deployed tactical nuclear weapons, less powerful than the warheads of strategic vectors, in Belarus, its closest ally and a neighbor of the EU.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov assured Wednesday that his country would only talk about nuclear arms control when Washington, Ukraine’s main military and financial backer, ceased to be “hostile” to Moscow.
Russia, heir to Soviet nuclear power, and the United States between them hold nearly 90% of all nuclear weapons on the planet.
Vladimir Putin, who in recent years has praised the new Russian weapons developed, capable according to him of piercing existing anti-missile shields, assured that Russia was in the process of completing tests of two of them: the Bourevestnik and Sarmat.