Russia expands tactical nuclear weapons exercises By Reuters

By Guy Faulconbridge and Lidia Kelly

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia said on Wednesday that soldiers and sailors from the Northern Leningrad Military District, bordering Norway, Finland, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, NATO members, had participated in exercises aimed at deploying tactical nuclear weapons.

The move appears to expand the revealed geography of nuclear exercises to include soldiers from military districts that cover almost all of Russia's European border, stretching from the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea.

President Vladimir Putin ordered the exercises, which were announced last month in the southern military district bordering Ukraine, after Russia called signals from Western officials that they would allow Ukraine to to strike deep into Russia with Western weapons.

“Personnel of the missile unit of the Leningrad Military District are training in combat training tasks,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement regarding the exercises.

These include obtaining special training munitions for the Iskander-M operational-tactical missile system, equipping the launchers with them and secretly advancing to the designated position area for preparations for missile launches , adds the press release.

“The crews of the navy ships involved in the training will equip sea-based cruise missiles with special simulated warheads and enter designated patrol areas,” the ministry said.

A video released by the Russian Defense Ministry shows a mobile missile system being escorted to a field as well as a rocket being loaded onto a warship.

Russia announced on Tuesday that it had launched a second stage of exercises aimed at training for the deployment of tactical nuclear weapons alongside Belarusian troops.

Putin said Friday that Russia did not need to use nuclear weapons to ensure victory in Ukraine, the Kremlin's strongest signal yet that Europe's deadliest conflict since World War II will not degenerate into nuclear war.

But he also said he did not rule out changing Russia's nuclear doctrine, which defines the conditions under which such weapons could be used. He has previously said he sees no reason to change the doctrine.

The United States says it has seen no change in Russia's strategic posture, although senior intelligence officials say they must take Moscow's remarks on nuclear weapons seriously.

Putin, Russia's top decision-maker on nuclear weapons deployment, has faced calls from Russia's elite to lower the threshold for using nuclear weapons.

Russia and the United States are by far the world's largest nuclear powers, holding about 88 percent of all nuclear weapons, according to the Federation of American Scientists.

When Russia announced the nuclear exercises last month, it said the missile forces of the Southern Military District would participate, alongside the air force and navy.

The Southern Military District, headquartered in Rostov-on-Don, sits alongside Ukraine and includes parts of Ukraine controlled by Russia.

The Leningrad Military District extends from the border with Norway in the north to Belarus and includes the Northern Fleet and the Kaliningrad exclave located on the Baltic Sea between Lithuania and Poland.

Russia has about 1,558 non-strategic nuclear warheads, but arms control experts say it is very difficult to say how many there are because of secrecy.

Putin said last week that most Russian tactical nuclear weapons have an explosive power of 70 to 75 kilotons, about five times the size of the U.S. nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in August 1945.