The Hindu : Russia begins large-scale nuclear war games

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 11, 2004

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International

Russia begins large-scale nuclear war games

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW, FEB. 10. Russia has launched large-scale war games involving the nuclear triad and conventional forces in what is believed to be a massive demonstration of its resurgent military might.

The strategic forces exercise will include test-firings of several land-based intercontinental nuclear missiles, one submarine-borne ballistic missile, and several aircraft-borne long-range cruise missiles.

The exercise will wind up with the launch of a Kosmos-series military satellite from the Plisetsk cosmodrome on February 18. A senior defence official said the Russian strategic forces will train for "preventing aggression and power pressure against Russia". The war games, in which all of Russia's six military districts will take part, are aimed at "practising strategic, including nuclear, deterrence," the First Deputy Chief of the Russian Armed Forces' General Staff, Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, told a news conference on Tuesday.

He said all missile launches would be monitored by the Russian early warning missile system.

Analysts said it was the largest Russian nuclear forces manoeuvres in two decades imitating an all-out nuclear war. They come at a moment of fresh strains in Russia's relations with the United States over Washington's plans to enlarge its foothold in the former Soviet republics. Nuclear and conventional forces will try out new methods of "confronting military threats and national security challenges", Gen. Baluyevsky said.

Apart from that, the war games will also check the ability of conventional forces to move troops and hardware over large distances.

According to the Kommersant daily, they closely resemble a 1982 Soviet exercise dubbed the "seven-hour nuclear war" that put the West on edge. Gen. Baluyevsky said this time Moscow had duly informed Washington of the coming war games.

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