MOSCOW: Russia tested missiles on Tuesday October 29 over distances of several thousand kilometers to simulate a “massive” launch nuclear response to a first enemy strike.

“Given growing geopolitical tensions and the emergence of new external threats and risks, it is important to have modern and constantly ready strategic forces,” President Vladimir Putin said while announcing the exercise.

It came at a critical moment in the Russo-Ukrainian war, after weeks of Russian signals to the West that Moscow would respond if the United States and its allies allowed kyiv to fire longer-range missiles in depth in Russia.

On Monday, NATO said North Korea had sent troops to western Russia, which Moscow did not deny.

In televised comments, Defense Minister Andrei Belousov told Putin the aim of the exercise was to practice launching “a massive nuclear strike by strategic offensive forces in response to a nuclear strike by the enemy “.

The exercise involved the entire Russian nuclear “triad” of land, sea and air missiles.

A Yars intercontinental ballistic missile was launched from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in northwest Russia to Kamchatka, a peninsula in the far east. Sineva and Bulava ballistic missiles were fired from submarines and cruise missiles were launched from strategic bombers, the Defense Ministry said.

The two-and-a-half-year-old war is entering what Russian officials say is its most dangerous phase, as the West considers ways to consolidate Ukraine while Russian forces advance into the country’s east .