Russia conducts massive exercise to test its nuclear forces

Nuclear-powered submarines and bombers in the sky fired a range of missiles which, according to the country's defence ministry, were all detected in time for preventive counter measures.

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Russia recently conducted a large-scale military exercise which was reportedly designed to test its nuclear capabilities in response to enemy attack.

The country conducts such exercises each year to ascertain its ability to meet with potential threats. The scale of the exercise this year though was significantly larger with nuclear-powered submarines, strategic missile carriers and bombers being mobilised. The Diplomat reported that warning radars were activated in mock drills to study the response time of counter forces in case of any enemy strike - nuclear or conventional. A number of cruise missiles, aero-ballistic missile and submarine-launched ballistic missiles were fired and it is reported that each of these were detected by the EKS space-based early warning system of the country.

A number of videos released by the Russian Defence Ministry show missiles being fired from the Barents and Okhotsk seas as well as from bombers in the sky.

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In a statement, the ministry said that the training was a success. "The exercises involved ground, naval and aviation strategic nuclear forces along with nuclear early-warning systems," informed the country's defence ministry. "Single space system and ground-based radar stations promptly detected all ballistic missiles launched by submarines."

There is a suspicion that because there was no mention of any ICBM launch in the official statement, a test missile launch could have failed or could have been cancelled due to technical reasons.