The Diplomat:
Last week, the Russian military conducted weapon drills involving its strategic nuclear forces and high-precision long-range weapons, according to TASS. The aim of the military exercise was to test the combat readiness of Russia’s nuclear triad.
A Russian Ministry of Defense press release stated that the war games tested “the reliability of relaying combat-training orders and signals along the entire command and control vertical, from the Russian national defense control center to the command posts of formations and military units.”
“In general, the results of the drills demonstrated high combat readiness of strategic nuclear forces and high-precision long-range weapons,” Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday.
Units involved in the military exercise came from Russia’s Southern Military District, Northern and Pacific Fleets, Caspian Flotilla, Aerospace Defense Forces and Long Range Aviation.
Among other things, the drill included the test-firing of a single-warhead RS-12M2 ICBM (Topol-M missile system)–the mainstay of Moscow’s future Strategic Missile Forces (RSMF)—from the Plesetsk cosmodrome.
In addition, according to TASS, Tu-160 strategic bombers fired guided missiles at targets at the Pemboy and Kura training ranges in northeastern Russia and on the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Russian Far East. Two Delta III-class and Delta-IV-class submarines fired ballistic missiles from the Barents and Okhotsk Seas…
