Sao Paulo
Amid acute global tensions due to the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, Russia began a massive retaliatory nuclear exercise against NATO states this Wednesday (25), the eve of the end of the NATOled military alliance’s annual nuclear attack simulation. United.
The coincidence of the Western Steadfast Noon exercise and the Russian Grom, which took place without much fanfare last year, was announced with pomp on state television by Defense Minister Serguei Choigu at a conference with President Vladimir Putin.
“Russia has tested its ability to carry out a massive retaliatory strike,” he said. He gave Putin a report on the exercise. At the same time, an RS24 Iars intercontinental ballistic missile was launched from the Plesetsk base (northwest of the country), an RS29 Sineva missile from a nuclear submarine in the Arctic, and cruise models of two Tu95MS strategic bombers.
Grom (“thunder” in Russian) was an annual Soviet exercise that was resumed by Putin in 2019 but took on new political dimensions with the Kremlin’s repeated use of nuclear threats in its dispute with the West.
This was already exacerbated by the invasion of Ukraine, in which the US and its allies supported Kiev’s military resistance, and has now escalated with the war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas. Putin did not support the group’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack, but followed Russian diplomatic tradition and spoke out in support of the Palestinians in international forums such as the UN.
More importantly, it expressed displeasure with the use of American aircraft carrier groups to dissuade Iran, its regional ally, from intervening in the conflict. He did this without subtlety, deploying MiG31K fighter aircraft patrols in the Black Sea, armed with hypersonic missiles theoretically capable of hitting US ships.
Grom took place a day before the end of the Steadfast Noon exercise, which was so secret that it was only revealed by NATO in 2019. This year, 60 aircraft are involved, including bombers capable of using nuclear weapons. B52H and F35 tactical fighters from 13 alliance countries.
NATO tried to emphasize in a note that the maneuver “has nothing to do with the current situation, so much so that it is being carried out more than 1,000 km from Russia’s borders”, in this case the airspace between Italy and Croatia coincidentally close to the border of the theater of war in Israel.
But the message is clear: this is a nuclear strike exercise. It doesn’t even say defensive, as the Russians try to sweeten it in Grom’s case. And NATO’s only nuclear rival in the region is Russia.
The main difference from the Western exercise is that it involves the use of lowerstrength tactical nuclear weapons used against more limited military targets. The Russian action is the popular idea of a nuclear apocalypse, with socalled strategic warheads, more powerful and capable of wiping out entire cities.
In practice, the rejection of the exercises is evidence of experts’ fears that the increasing relaxation of doctrine in the United States and Russia regarding the use of tactical weapons could become a reality and lead to a broader exchange of nuclear weapons. However, Russian nuclear doctrine only provides for the use of the bomb in the event of an attack with it or a threat to the state using conventional means.
Of course, all of this does not mean that World War III is imminent, despite all the interconnections between the ongoing conflicts, especially because they are regular exercises. But the deterioration of the world’s nuclear security situation is the worst since the Cold War, which almost resulted in missile launches at its peak in 1962 and 1983.
In the case of Russia, it is primarily about keeping the nuclear weapon on the table, curbing military support for Kiev and now signaling support for Iran. However, Putin himself has already said that he would be stupid to use the bomb in Ukraine.
At the same time, it positioned tactical warheads in neighboring Belarus, prompting Poland to ask the US to do the same on its territory. In addition, it always advertises that it can use its new “invincible weapons” such as the Sarmat heavy intercontinental ballistic missile.
Not that the US is an innocent bystander. Under Donald Trump, the country abandoned two key nuclear arms control treaties and armed submarines with a loweryield bomb, suggesting the use of a bomb. He claimed he was responding to Putin, who in turn has used nuclear threats several times since the eve of war in 2022.
Earlier this year, the Russian suspended his country’s participation in New START, the last strategic arms treaty in force. And now, amid speculation that it could test new nuclear weapons, it has called on the Russian parliament to revoke ratification of the 1996 agreement that banned all tests of this type of bomb.
The argument: The USA never ratified the treaty, which also made it legally invalid. That’s true, but what matters are the signals, even if the Kremlin says it won’t conduct nuclear tests. The Russian parliament concluded the process with senators unanimously voting to end the agreement this Wednesday, and now it is up to Putin to approve the new law.
According to the Federation of American Scientists, Russia has the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, closely followed by the United States, and both countries concentrate almost 90% of the 12,500 warheads on the planet. NATO has two other nuclear powers (Britain and France), and Moscow has its ally China third in the ranking.