Russia’s conflict with Ukraine and the West. Interfax: Russia announces exercises for its strategic deterrence forces. Under the leadership of Vladimir Putin

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The exercises will be held with the participation of the Air and Aerospace Forces, the Southern Military District Forces, the Strategic Missile Forces, the Northern Fleet and the Black Sea Fleet, Interfax news agency reported, citing a statement issued by the Defense Ministry on Friday.

The Defense Ministry said the exercises were planned in advance to test “the readiness of military command and control bodies, launcher crews, warship crews and strategic missile carriers, and the reliability of nuclear and conventional strategic weapons.”

The location of the training has not been officially announced. According to TASS, “Traditionally, as part of the exercises, the Northern Fleet submarine launches an ICBM at the Kura training ground in Kamchatka, while the nuclear submarine of the Pacific Fleet launches an ICBM at a target at the Shiza training ground in northern Russia (the missile range is located In the Autonomous Region of Nigora – ed.).

At the beginning of February, a British daily newspaper “financial times” He wrote that Russia plans to start strategic nuclear exercises soon. The newspaper’s reports confirmed Defense Minister Ben Wallace. The date of the maneuvers was to be moved from autumn to winter. The British newspaper’s interlocutors saw this as a “warning to NATO” and linked it to a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The maneuvers will take place at a time when the West is increasingly concerned about the situation in Ukraine. Russia gathered more than a hundred thousand soldiers near the borders of the neighboring country. Western intelligence warns of a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine, while the authorities in Kiev, in turn, fear a provocation in Donbass, occupied by pro-Russian separatists, which may be a pretext for a Russian invasion.