Putin Defies West, Leads Test of Nuclear Forces in Crisis

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A day after being formally accused by the United States at the United Nations Security Council of planning the invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to pull the nuclear card in the crisis that has dragged on since the end of last year.

He did it the traditional Russian way: the Defense Ministry announced that the leader will personally lead this Saturday (19) a major “already planned” exercise involving his country’s strategic forces, including the launch of nuclear-capable ballistic and cruise missiles. .

“The exercise of strategic deterrent forces was previously planned to check the readiness of military command and control centers, combat launch teams, ships and strategic missiles for assigned tasks, as well as the reliability of nuclear and non-nuclear weapons. strategic forces,” the statement reads.

The word sums up one of the “military-technical measures” that the Kremlin has promised to adopt in its response to the American rejection of its terms to try to circumvent the crisis on its terms, in this case preventing Ukraine from joining NATO (Western military alliance). , on Thursday (17).

Putin does not, for obvious apocalyptic reasons, want to threaten war with atomic weapons. But he wants to remind the West of the arsenal he commands, at a time when his repeated announcements of withdrawing some of the perhaps 150,000 troops he has deployed around Ukraine are called a farce by US and European officials.

The Russian exercises will involve ground forces from the Southern Military District, which borders Ukraine, and from two fleets, the Northern and the Black Sea, the latter based in Crimea, in the waters surrounding the conflicted region.

As Russian military analyst Ivan Barabanov told sheet, there is the possibility of launching a Tsirkon naval hypersonic missile, one of the “invincible weapons” unveiled by Putin in 2018. It may have nuclear capability, but its primary function is not strategic, but tactical: sinking ships. But the technology involved makes it a gem to show off.

“These trainings are common, but obviously the context is different,” he said.

At the same time, in an attempt to demonstrate de-escalation, the Russians announced and posted videos of further withdrawal of forces from regions under tension. At least 10 Crimea-based Su-24 fighter-bombers were deployed to other bases, and another train with troops and equipment left the 2014 annexed peninsula of Ukraine by Russia, according to the government.

The Friday (18) will continue with movement, with Putin receiving dictator Aleksandr Lukachenko, his partner in the ballet of pressures around Ukraine who has already offered to receive Russian nuclear weapons on his territory. In two days, the dreaded exercise involving 30,000 Russian troops in the neighboring country, which is to the north, a mere 200 km from Kiev, ends.

For US President Joe Biden and his Secretary of State Antony Blinken, everything is set for an invasion or one-off military action in eastern Ukraine, where Moscow supports the two self-proclaimed republics of Russian ethnic separatists.

They are the result of the civil war that followed the annexation of Crimea, in turn a reaction by Putin to try to avoid the absorption of his neighbor in Western structures such as the European Union and, mainly, NATO. The Kremlin-aligned government had been overthrown, and the Russian acted quickly and, so far, successfully.

The problem is that the issue cannot drag on forever. So, from Putin’s point of view, demonstrating strength by mobilizing forces and issuing an ultimatum calling for a new security architecture that prevents NATO enlargement in Eastern Europe was the chosen way of dealing with the problem.

The result was the current crisis, in which markets are nervous as they were not in 2014, due to the very direct involvement of Washington. Biden took over with an aggressive speech against Putin in 2021, going so far as to call him a murderer.

Now it is forced to negotiate, even if it maintains a harsh and denunciatory tone, to the horror of European governments like Germany, which needs Russian natural gas for its economy. By promising sanctions and support, but not military intervention in Ukraine in the event of an attack, Biden managed to be seen as a traitor in Kiev as well.

Throughout the early hours of Friday, there was no repetition of mortar attacks on the so-called line of control, which separates the rebels from the territory under Ukrainian control. The exchange of accusations about who attacked whom on Thursday helped to raise the alarmist tone in the West, realizing a “false flag” operation, that is, an attack forged to create a pretext for intervention, in this case by the Russians.

Putin’s atomic message is low cost, effective as propaganda and not very subtle, of course. A legacy of the Cold War, when the USSR and the US played a dangerous game of primacy in the sector, the Russian nuclear arsenal is equivalent to the US. Under the New Start treaty, renewed last year, both countries have around 1,600 warheads ready for use, “hot” in silos, next to bombers or submarines.

Moscow’s stockpile is even bigger than the American one, according to the prestigious Federation of American Scientists, with 2,897 bombs, compared to 1,950 in Washington. The countries have, respectively, 1,760 and 1,900 retired but still reusable weapons.

That adds up to about 90% of all weapons of the type in the world, although the arsenal of Putin’s ally China is growing, with an estimated 350 warheads stockpiled. On the west side, the UK has 225 pumps, 120 operational, and France has 290, 280 of which are ready for use.

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