Radio Free Europe:
Russia says it has conducted military drills involving ballistic-missile systems near the country’s western border.
The Defense Ministry said on October 20 that the war games were held at a shooting range near the city of Luga, some 100 kilometers east of the Estonian border.
The exercises featured the deployment of Iskander missiles and preparations for firing them, but didn’t involve actual launches, the military said.
Nuclear-capable Iskander missiles have a range of up to 500 kilometers.
Russia has built up its military forces near the border with Europe, most recently by stationing Iskander missiles in the Baltic Sea exclave of Kaliningrad.
Moscow’s relations with the West have plunged to levels of acrimony unseen since the end of the Cold War following Russia’s military seizure of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in March 2014 and an ensuing war between Kyiv’s forces and Russia-backed separatists.
