Military exercises involving tactical nuclear weapons are to be held after European leaders indicated greater support for Ukraine.
Russia has said it will hold exercises that will include the use of tactical nuclear weapons, just days after European leaders expressed greater military support for Ukraine.
The Kremlin said on Monday that the military exercises ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin were in response to statements by Western and NATO member states about sending troops to Ukraine, which Russia invaded more than two years ago.
These include exercises for the preparation and use of non-strategic nuclear weapons, which are intended to “increase readiness to carry out combat tasks” after “provocative statements and threats from certain Western officials,” the Defense Ministry said.
Missile formations in the Southern Military District and naval forces would take part in the exercises, which would take place “in the near future,” it said.
Russia’s strategic nuclear forces hold regular exercises, but the statement was the first public announcement of exercises involving tactical nuclear weapons, whose yield – the amount of energy released in an explosion – is typically lower than that of strategic nuclear weapons designed to destroy entire cities.
The move represents an escalation in tensions that have risen since French President Emmanuel Macron said last week his country would consider sending ground troops to Ukraine if Kiev asks for assistance. A day later, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said Ukraine could use British weapons against targets inside Russia if it wanted to.
Russian officials condemned both statements and warned Moscow against retaliation, calling it a “dangerous escalatory trend.” Moscow has long warned that a conflict with NATO would become inevitable if European members of the military alliance sent their soldiers to fight in Ukraine.
Relations between Western countries led by the United States and Russia collapsed after Russian troops invaded neighboring Ukraine in February 2022.
Since the start of the war, Russia has repeatedly warned of rising nuclear risks – warnings that the United States says it must take seriously, even as its officials note that they have seen no change in Russia’s nuclear posture.
Russia and the USA are by far the largest nuclear powers in the world and have more than 10,600 of the world’s 12,100 nuclear warheads. China has the third largest nuclear arsenal, followed by France and the United Kingdom.
What makes a nuclear weapon “tactical”?
Although there is no universal definition, tactical nuclear weapons are often defined by their size and range or their use for limited targets.
There is no uniform size that characterizes tactical weapons, but they tend to be much larger than traditional bombs and cause radioactive fallout and other deadly effects beyond the explosion itself.
They are often referred to as “non-strategic weapons,” as opposed to strategic weapons, which the U.S. military defines as targeting “the enemy’s ability and willingness to wage war,” including production, infrastructure, transportation and communications systems. and other goals.
In contrast, tactical weapons are designed to achieve more limited and immediate battle-winning military objectives. They can be mounted on rockets, dropped bombs or even artillery shells, which have a relatively short range, far less than the giant intercontinental ballistic missiles designed to travel thousands of kilometers and hit targets across oceans.
“Tactical nuclear warheads were designed to give military commanders more flexibility on the battlefield. “In the mid-1950s, as more powerful thermonuclear bombs were being built and tested, military planners thought that smaller, shorter-range weapons would be more useful in ‘tactical’ situations,” said Al Jazeera defense editor Alex Gatopoulos.
“Modern warheads have variable yield, meaning an operator can set the yield, and the strength of a tactical weapon ranges from a fraction of a kiloton to 50 kilotons. To illustrate, the weapon that destroyed Hiroshima was about 15 kt. A single kiloton is equivalent in output to 1,000 tons of TNT,” he said.