Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered military drills simulating the use of tactical nuclear weapons, his Defense Ministry announced Monday, in an apparent retaliation to comments made by Western leaders about Moscow’s ongoing war in Ukraine.
The Defense Ministry statement announcing the exercises said they came “in response to provocative statements and threats of certain Western officials regarding the Russian Federation.” The announcement follows a furious reaction from the Kremlin last week to recent remarks from British and French politicians.
Although Russia’s strategic nuclear forces routinely conduct exercises, Moscow has not previously publicly announced drills for the use of tactical nukes. Tactical nuclear weapons typically feature less powerful warheads than those arming strategic missiles and are designed for battlefield use rather than the destruction of city-sized targets.
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The drills will involve the practice of the “preparation and use of non-strategic nuclear weapons,” the Defense Ministry said, adding that missile formations of the Southern Military District and the navy would take part.
The statement did not name which officials had made the “provocative statements” which had supposedly caused Putin to order the exercises, but the announcement followed the Kremlin’s condemnation last week of remarks made by French President Emmanuel Macron and David Cameron, the former U.K. prime minister and current foreign secretary.
In an interview published last Thursday, Macron said that he would not rule out the possibility of sending ground troops to Ukraine, reiterating a position he’d publicly taken earlier in the year which received significant blowback both in France and internationally. On the same day, Cameron said during a visit to Kyiv that Ukraine has the right to use long-range British weapons to strike targets on Russian territory.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on Friday called Macron’s comment “a very important and very dangerous statement” and similarly branded Cameron’s words “another very dangerous statement.” “This is a direct escalation of tensions around the Ukrainian conflict, which potentially may threaten European security, the entire European security architecture,” Peskov said, according to the Associated Press.
While it’s unusual for nuclear powers to publicly announce that weapons drills have been arranged in response to specific provocations, Putin has previously turned to nuclear rhetoric during the war in Ukraine. In March 2023, he said he planned to station tactical weapons in Belarus following Britain’s decision to supply Kyiv with armor-piercing shells made with depleted uranium.
He also warned in March this year that a direct conflict between NATO and Russia would put the world one step away from World War III. Putin nevertheless said “hardly anyone” wants such a scenario.
