War’s Drumbeat: Putin Launches Nuclear Drills, Ukraine Announces Death of Soldier

By Staff, Agencies

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched strategic drills on Saturday, and followed the exercises from the situation center in Moscow, along with Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko.

The drills involve both nuclear and non-nuclear weapons, and are being held amid the escalation in eastern Ukraine and continuing tensions with NATO.

The Russian Defense Ministry said ahead of the drills that they would include the “launching of ballistic and cruise missiles.” The air force is set participate along with the country’s Northern Sea and Black Sea fleets.

An RS-24 Yars intercontinental ballistic missile has been launched from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northwestern Russia, to hit a target in the Kamchatka Peninsula in the country’s Far East, after traveling around 5,700km (3,540 miles).

Moreover, the nuclear-powered Karelia submarine has fired an R-29RMU Sineva ballistic missile from the Barents Sea in the Arctic, also targeting the Kamchatka polygon.

Ships and submarines from Russia’s Northern and Black Sea fleets fired Kalibr cruise missiles. They also launched a Zircon anti-ship hypersonic cruise missile, one of the country’s newest weapons designed to destroy large aircraft carriers and other large enemy vessels.

Large Tu-95 strategic bombers, meanwhile, struck targets on Kamchatka and in western Russia.

This comes as the Ukrainian military has announced the death of one of its soldiers in an alleged shelling by pro-Russia forces in the country’s volatile east.

The military said the fatality took place early on Saturday when the pro-Russia separatists opened fire on more than 20 settlements and residences in eastern Ukraine, using heavy guns and artillery.

“As a result of a shelling attack, one Ukrainian soldier received a fatal shrapnel wound,” the joint military command for east Ukraine said in a statement.

For its part, the leadership of eastern regions of Lugansk and Donetsk called the situation "critical" and announced a "general mobilization" in response to the Ukrainian military offensives.

"I urge my fellow citizens who are in the reserves to come to military conscription offices. Today I signed a decree on general mobilization," Denis Pushilin, the leader of the Donetsk People's Republic, said in a video statement.

Pushilin stressed that his region's forces had prevented attacks planned by Ukrainian security services, and that Kiev forces had continued their offensives.

"Together, we will achieve for all of us the victory we desire and need. We will protect Donbas and all Russian people," Pushilin added.

The leader of the Lugansk region, Leonid Pasechnik, also published a decree saying the measure in his region was signed to prepare for "repelling aggression.”