
On Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin supervised strategic nuclear exercises that included the launch of hypersonic ballistic missiles and other weapons, the latest display of might at a time when Russia and the West are at odds over Ukraine.
Putin sat with his close ally, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, in a “situation centre” in the Kremlin, watching the drills. According to the Kremlin, the drills featured launches from warships, submarines, and bombers as well as from land that hit targets on land and at sea.
It stated two ballistic missiles were launched, one from a point in northwest Russia and the other from a submarine in the Barents Sea, both of which hit targets thousands of miles away in Kamchatka’s far east peninsula.
The Russian news agency RIA broadcast footage of a split-screen of multiple top senior military chiefs, as well as Putin, who ordered the drills to begin. The Kremlin has maintained the drills are part of a routine training process and that they do not indicate a worsening of the standoff.
They come after a massive series of manoeuvres by Russia’s military forces over the last four months, which included a build-up of troops to the north, east, and south of Ukraine, estimated by the West to number 150,000 or more. Russia has denied any plans to strike Ukraine.