MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia held a training exercise on Tuesday to simulate a "massive nuclear strike" in response to a first strike by an enemy, Defence Minister Andrei Belousov said.
President Vladimir Putin kicked off the exercise at a critical point in the Ukraine war. The drill, which Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said was a regular, planned event, involved the launch of ballistic and cruise missiles.
As part of the exercise, a Yars intercontinental ballistic missile was launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northwest Russia to the Kura test range in Kamchatka in the far east, the defence ministry said.
Sineva and Bulava ballistic missiles were fired from submarines in the Barents and Okhotsk Seas. Tu-95MS strategic bomber planes, capable of carrying nuclear weapons, launched cruise missiles.
All the missiles reached their targets, the defence ministry said.