Yesterday, Russia started the first phase of military exercises on the use of tactical nuclear weapons, as ordered two weeks ago by Russian President Vladimir Putin. The head of the Kremlin assured that they would be a response to the “threats” of the West contained in statements of political leaders.
In a statement, the Russian Ministry of Defense specified that the exercises are taking place in the Southern Military District, which borders Ukraine. In the practices, Iskander missile complexes and Kinjal hypersonic missiles are being used, among other weapons.
Soldiers in charge of the Iskander missile systems simulated a secret advance to place the complex in position and prepare for a launch, the memo said. The air force participating in the exercises is training with the equipment of nuclear warheads for air-to-air missiles, including hypersonic Kinjal ones.
Tactical, or non-strategic, nuclear weapons do not have the vast destructive potential of the latter, which can destroy entire enemy cities. However, they still have a vast destructive potential.
The current maneuvers were announced on May 6 by the Ministry of Defense, which explained that they were an order from Putin to respond to Western “threats”. Dmitri Peskov, head of press for the Russian president, explained that specifically it is the words of the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who raised the possibility of sending European troops to fight in Ukraine against Russia; of the head of British Foreign Policy, David Cameron, on the right of Ukraine to use British weapons to attack Russian territory, and of “representatives of the United States Senate”. “It is a new return to the escalation of tension. It is unprecedented, and requires special attention and special measures”, he added.
Since Russia sent its troops to Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow has wielded the atomic weapon. Sometimes announcing maneuvers like the current ones, other times reminding of the huge arsenal that Russia possesses and also saying that the actions of the West to help Ukraine can have catastrophic consequences. “This rhetoric is irresponsible and inappropriate for a nuclear power,” criticized the spokesman for the US State Department, Matthew Miller.
On the other hand, a possible new case of corruption in the Russian army became known yesterday. According to the state-run Tass agency, a military court ordered a two-month provisional prison sentence for commander-in-chief Ivan Popov, accused of committing a crime of fraud. Telegram channels Dva Maiora and Gray Zone published that it is an alleged embezzlement of one hundred million rubles (a little more than one million euros) allocated for military needs in Zaporizhia, a Ukrainian region that Russia annex in 2022.
Popov led the 58th Combined Forces Army in Zaporizhia until July. He was relieved of his post shortly after he complained to senior officials that his troops were not receiving the proper weapons and reconnaissance systems.
News of Popov’s jailing came a week after the arrest of Lt. Gen. Yuri Kuznetsov, chief of staff at Russia’s Defense Ministry, in a corruption case. At the end of April, the police arrested the Deputy Minister of Defense, Timur Ivanov, accused of accepting bribes “on a particularly large scale”.