Russia’s Nuclear Forces Holding Drills

Some 1,000 servicemen are exercising in intense maneuvers using more than 100 vehicles, including Yars intercontinental ballistic missile launchers, the defense ministry announced.

Moscow has long warned against the continued eastward expansion of the US-led military alliance, deeming the bloc a “tool geared towards confrontation”. Deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, has suggested deploying nuclear weapons on Russia's western border.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has also said Russia’s starting position is that atomic war should be unacceptable. However, he added that the situation has since deteriorated to the point where there is a real and serious threat.

Russia’s Envoy to the US has also warned that NATO powers are not treating the risk of nuclear war with due gravity, claiming that the West, and not Moscow, is driving brinkmanship amid tension rivaling the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Speaking to Newsweek, Russia’s ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Antonov, condemned Western officials for “a flurry of blatant misrepresentation” of Moscow’s nuclear doctrine and an apparent lack of concern about the potential for a civilization-ending thermonuclear exchange.

“The current generation of NATO politicians clearly does not take the nuclear threat seriously,” Antonov said, adding that because leaders in the military bloc continue to misread the risk of nuclear war, Russian officials “have never stopped our efforts to reach agreements that will guarantee that a catastrophic confrontation will not be unleashed".

"It is our country that in recent years has persistently proposed to American colleagues to affirm that there can be no winners in a nuclear war, thus it should never happen," he continued.

American officials insist that it is Russia that has upped the nuclear ante, with both Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair General Mark Milley accusing the country of “nuclear saber-rattling” following a media interview with the Russian FM, who argued the risk of atomic war is “serious, real, and we must not underestimate it".

Russian President Vladimir Putin has faced similar allegations after escalating the alert status of Moscow’s nuclear forces soon after launching a “special military operation” in Ukraine in late February. At the time, he stated the move was triggered by “aggressive statements” from NATO members and “unfriendly economic actions against our country” – referring to a deluge of Western sanctions imposed in response to Russia’s attack on Ukraine.

Antonov rejected Austin and Milley’s charges as part of a “baseless… propaganda campaign”, however, and went on to detail Russia’s own nuclear policy, which states such weapons may only be deployed “in response to the use of WMD against Russia and its allies, or in the event of aggression against our country when the very existence of the state is jeopardized".