“During the exercise, a series of measures will be taken to train the preparation and use of non-strategic nuclear weapons,” the Russian Ministry of Defense said in a statement published on the social network Telegram.
He added that this measure was taken “on the instructions of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation”, Vladimir Putin.
This training aims to “maintain the army’s readiness” to protect the country, “in response to provocative statements and threats made against Russia by certain Western officials”, added the Russian ministry.
The exercises will involve the air force, navy and forces of the Southern Military District, which is located very close to Ukraine and covers the regions that Moscow annexed.
The date and location of these exercises have not been announced.
In October 2023, Russia announced that Vladimir Putin supervised ballistic missile launches during military maneuvers intended to simulate a “massive nuclear attack” on Moscow.
During these exercises, a Lars intercontinental ballistic missile was fired from the Plesetsk space base in northern Russia, and another Sineva ballistic missile was launched from a submarine in the Barents Sea.
Its organization was made public on the same day that the upper house of the Russian Parliament, the Federation Council, approved the repeal of the ratification of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
Since the start of the conflict in Ukraine in February 2022, the Russian president has been talking about the possible use of nuclear weapons.
Russia deployed tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, its closest ally and European Union neighbor, in the summer of 2023.
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 case of aggression with conventional weapons “that threaten the very existence of the State”.
