Russia's unseen military drills spark nuclear concerns in Europe

Russia has begun alarming training sessions. Without prior announcements, units of the Leningrad Military District, neighboring Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, have started learning how to handle nuclear weapons.

Many of the details reported by Russian media or government representatives are part of propaganda. Such reports are a part of the information warfare conducted by the Russian Federation.

As reported in “Rzeczpospolita,” the exercises began on May 21 but were conducted solely in the Southern Military District bordering Ukraine and in Belarus. Now, the "second stage" has been announced, and its reach has significantly expanded.

The Russian Ministry of Defense stated that during the exercises, the charges would be placed "in carrier rockets, which will then covertly move to designated positions to prepare and conduct missile launches." The newspaper explains that soldiers are practicing loading warheads onto Iskander rockets and Kinzhal air-launched missiles.

Russia claims that these operations are only being conducted with training charges. However, according to experts, tracking the movement of small tactical nuclear missiles is complex and, therefore, hard to determine what Russia is practising.

Let us recall that recently, during a plenary session of the International Economic Forum in Saint Petersburg, Vladimir Putin stated that Russia's "tactical nuclear weapons are three to four times more powerful than the bombs used by Americans in Hiroshima and Nagasaki."

"Russian authorities have never initiated the escalation of nuclear rhetoric," Putin said, responding to a question from influential Russian analyst Sergey Karaganov, who asked whether Russia should have a prepared "nuclear pistol."

Last year, Karaganov proposed that Moscow conduct a limited nuclear strike on a NATO member in Europe to force the West to withdraw from the conflict in Ukraine and, thus - as he put it - prevent the outbreak of a third world war.