On October 13, in Astana, the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) was taking place. On the sidelines of the conference, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan left, and Russian President Vladimir Putin met.
Around this time of year, Russia usually conducts significant nuclear drills; authorities in the United States and other Western nations anticipate them to begin soon. According to American sources, they will probably involve the test launch of ballistic missiles.
But some Western officials are concerned Moscow would purposely try to cast doubt on its intentions given that Putin has openly vowed to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia in its disintegrating invasion of Ukraine.
On condition of anonymity, a Western diplomat told Reuters: “This is why you don’t want to have enormously hot rhetoric at the same time you’re going to perform a nuclear practice.”
“Because then we do have an additional difficulty to truly make sure that the behaviors we observe, the things that are occurring, are actually an exercise and not something else,” the author explains.
The official nevertheless expressed “great confidence” in the West’s capacity to draw this distinction.
At a press conference in Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg promised that the alliance would continue to closely observe Russia’s yearly nuclear drills.
John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, warned at the White House that Russia would conduct extensive maneuvers of its strategic nuclear assets during the so-called “Grom” drills, including live missile launches. They were “routine,” he said of them.
We know that Russian nuclear units train extensively at this time of year, Kirby said, adding that the United States would “watch that accordingly.” Russia likely believes that this exercise will help them project power, especially in light of recent events.
Under the condition of anonymity, a U.S. defense official said that the Russian drills were anticipated to take place around the same time as NATO’s own annual nuclear preparedness exercise, known as “Steadfast Noon,” which will start next week.
The official told Reuters, “We feel that Russian nuclear hyperbole and its determination to carry out this drill while at war with Ukraine is reckless.
“It is reckless to brandish nuclear weapons to exert pressure on the United States and its allies.”
On Saturday, February 19, 2022, this image of a Russian Iskander-K missile being launched during a military drill at a training facility in Russia was captured from a video provided by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service.
An email requesting comment received no immediate response from the Russian Defense Ministry.
According to officials, Putin has not yet made any actions that would indicate he is getting ready to launch a nuclear attack, but Moscow’s nuclear rhetoric has increased in the wake of a successful counteroffensive by the military of Ukraine during the past month.
Putin has declared the annexation of Ukrainian territory recently and has threatened to use nuclear weapons to defend Russian territory. A top NATO official warned on Wednesday that the alliance might respond “physically” to any use of nuclear weapons by Russia.
After a meeting of NATO’s nuclear planning group on Thursday in Brussels, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stated that he had not observed any “indications and warnings” that would lead to a change in the country’s nuclear posture.
The last time Russia used its nuclear weapons was in February, just before it invaded Ukraine. At the time, officials thought this was done to deter the West from backing Kyiv.
The Western official anticipated exercises designed to evaluate “the Kremlin’s capacity to give control over the forces and issue a direction, as well as the forces’ capacity to respond to that direction.”
The official expected that Russia will make some of the drills public and use them to emphasize its threats.
The Western diplomat stated, “We should anticipate that there would be nuclear rhetoric throughout the drill, in order for them to take advantage, strategic media advantage, of the exercise itself.
According to U.S. officials, NATO’s yearly nuclear exercise was scheduled prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and has been held annually at around the same period for more than ten years. According to the U.S. defense official, the majority of the exercises would take place more than 1,000 kilometers (625 miles) away from Russia.
The drills, which feature fighter jets capable of carrying nuclear weapons but do not involve live bombs, are scheduled to involve 14 NATO countries, according to U.S. officials, who also confirmed that U.S. military B-52 bombers will take part.
The U.S. defense official stated that there will be no special messaging around the drills, “but we will continue routine activities to sustain our (nuclear) deterrent.”
“Nuclear sabre rattling, in our opinion, is foolish and careless. We won’t participate in that game, even though Russia might.”
