Putin’s nuclear show of force to Trump: Kremlin leader wastes no time in rolling out fearsome ICBM missiles for war games, hours after The Don’s re-election
Vladimir Putin put on a show of nuclear power during Donald Trump’s re-election when he rolled out a fearsome Yars intercontinental ballistic missile.
Images released by the Russian Defense Ministry show a missile being transported at a speed of 30,000 km per hour on a special loading unit in the Kaluga region.
Yars missiles have a range of up to 12,000 kilometers, allowing attacks on both the US and Europe.
They currently form the main part of the ground component of Russia’s strategic nuclear force.
The latest exercises follow Trump’s re-election, amid deep tensions in relations between Russia and NATO countries over Putin’s ongoing war against Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin put on a show of nuclear power during Donald Trump’s re-election when he rolled out a fearsome Yars intercontinental ballistic missile
Footage released by the Russian Defense Ministry shows a missile being transported at a speed of 30,000 km per hour on a special loading unit
Yars missiles have a range of up to 12,000 kilometers, allowing attacks on both the US and Europe
Although Moscow was believed to have favored Trump over his opponent Kamala Harris, Putin did not officially congratulate the newly elected US president.
On Wednesday, Putin’s spokesman said of the US:
“Let us not forget that we are talking about an unfriendly country that is both directly and indirectly involved in a war against our nation.”
It also comes a week after Putin staged a mock nuclear war when he launched dozens of missiles capable of unleashing a “massive” attack in a stark warning to the West.
The major new exercises stretched across Russia, with launches of Yars missiles from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in the northwest to the Kura test range in Kamchatka in the far east.
Defense Minister Andrei Belousov warned the West that the exercise was intended to demonstrate how Russia could “conduct a massive nuclear strike by strategic strike forces in response to an enemy nuclear attack.”
The Kremlin also announced last month that Russia’s nuclear doctrine, last updated in 2020, had been changed based on changes proposed by Putin that were about to be formalized.
Putin said the changes could ensure Moscow would authorize a nuclear attack if Russia were hit by conventional weapons by a nuclear force, marking a worrying lowering of the so-called “nuclear threshold.”
The changes also allow Moscow to respond with a nuclear strike if a non-nuclear state launches an attack on Russia while backed by a nuclear force.
The latest exercises follow Trump’s re-election, amid deep tensions in relations between Russia and NATO countries over Putin’s war on Ukraine
It comes a week after Putin staged a mock nuclear war when he launched dozens of missiles capable of unleashing a “massive” attack in a stark warning to the West.
