Russian President Vladimir Putin oversaw strategic nuclear exercises remotely on Wednesday, which included missile tests both at sea and in the air, as announced by the Kremlin.
The drills featured the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile, classified as “Yars,” from a space facility, alongside a “Sineva” ballistic missile launched from a nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea, and nuclear-capable cruise missiles fired from strategic bombers.
During the exercise, which Putin noted had been long-planned and attended via video link, the Russian military executed a test launch of the intercontinental ballistic missile “Yars” from the Plesetsk spaceport, located near the Arctic Circle, targeting a site in Kamchatka in eastern Russia.
The Kremlin’s statement clarified that a “Sineva” missile, which has a range of up to 11,500 kilometers, was also launched from a submarine in the Barents Sea. Russian “Tu-95 MS” bombers also deployed cruise missiles. The Russian presidency confirmed that “all training objectives were achieved.”
This announcement of Russian drills follows a week after NATO’s annual nuclear exercise, which involves approximately 2,000 personnel and 71 aircraft from 14 countries.
The Western exercises, which last nearly two weeks, are being conducted at military bases in the Netherlands, Belgium, the United Kingdom, and Denmark, as well as over the North Sea.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov stated on Tuesday that “such exercises are always of significant interest to our military,” who “carefully analyze their scope and objectives.”
Last September, around 100,000 troops participated in the Russian-Belarusian “Zapad-2025” exercises, some of which took place near the European Union’s borders, raising concerns in Kyiv and among European nations.