This is a response to Western “threats”. The Russian army announced on Tuesday May 21 that it had started military exercises near Ukraine on the use of tactical nuclear weapons, ordered in early May by President Vladimir Putin.
“The first stage of the exercises […] on the preparation and use of non-strategic nuclear weapons has begun,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement. It specified that these maneuvers are taking place in the Southern Military District, based near Ukraine and which covers Ukrainian regions whose annexation Moscow claims.
According to the ministry, during this stage, Russian soldiers train to load “special munitions” into Iskander missile batteries, but also to move them “in a concealed manner” to firing zones.
Aviation will be involved
These exercises also involve aviation and Kinjal hypersonic missiles, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. “The current exercise aims to maintain the readiness of personnel and equipment […] the use of non-strategic nuclear weapons to respond and guarantee the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Russian state in response […] threats from certain Western officials,” the ministry said.
He broadcast, without giving further details on the location of these exercises, images showing two Iskander systems deployed in a field and soldiers working on an airfield around a bomber.
Destroy targets on the battlefield
The tactical nuclear weapon, smaller in explosive charge than the strategic nuclear weapon, is theoretically intended to destroy targets on the battlefield and can be fired from vehicles, artillery pieces, ships or planes. Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered these exercises to be held in early May in response, according to the Kremlin, to Western threats, notably the possibility raised by French President Emmanuel Macron of sending troops to Ukraine.
Since the start of the conflict in Ukraine in February 2022, the president has blown hot and cold about a possible use of nuclear weapons. Russia deployed tactical nuclear weapons in the summer of 2023 in Belarus, its closest ally, which also announced in May a synchronized exercise with Moscow to check its tactical nuclear weapons launchers.
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 event of aggression with conventional weapons “threatening the very existence of State”.