Russia has begun using North Korean troops in significant numbers for the first time to conduct assaults on Ukrainian forces battling to hold an enclave in the country’s Kursk region, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
Ukraine’s air defences shot down 58 of 132 Russian drones, the Ukrainian air force said. It said 72 Russian drones were “lost” due to the use of electronic warfare interference tactics. There were no immediate reports of damage.
Russia’s air defence systems destroyed 15 Ukrainian drones overnight, the Ministry of Defence announced. Thirteen of the drones were downed over the Black Sea and one each over the Russian border regions of Kursk and Belgorod, it added.
A nine-year-old child was killed in a Ukrainian drone attack on Belgorod, regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said. Two other people, including another child, were injured in the attack.
A Ukrainian serviceman and drone pilot of the 12th Special Operations Brigade ‘Azov’ inspects a Ukrainian unmanned aerial system before an aerial reconnaissance mission in Donetsk [Maria Senovilla/EPA]
Ukrainian drones carried out an attack on the Steel Horse oil facility in Russia’s Oryol region which is a crucial source of fuel supplies for Russian troops, Ukraine’s military announced.
Ukrainian drones struck a “fuel infrastructure facility” in Orlov, the local governor said, causing a fire to break out. Governor Andrei Klychkov said 11 drones had been shot down over the region. No casualties were reported.
Politics and diplomacy
Zelenskyy said he had instructed his government to set up mechanisms to supply food to Syria in the aftermath of the fall of President Bashar al-Assad. Since al-Assad’s fall, Russia’s wheat export to Syria has been suspended.
Ukrainian General Oleksandr Tarnavskiy, 54, has been appointed to head the operational and tactical group Donetsk, replacing General Oleksandr Lutsenko, the military announced, as Russia makes swift advances in the Donetsk region.
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. — The U.S. is sending Ukraine another $1 billion in long-term security aid, nearly half of the budget left in the Pentagon’s account.
This $988 million package will come from the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, through which the U.S. buys new equipment for Ukraine rather than shipping kit directly from American stocks. As of last week, the U.S. had just over $2 billion left in the fund.
The latest round will go toward rocket munitions, drones and equipment needed to repair weapons within Ukraine.
“America and our friends have become the arsenal of Ukrainian democracy,” said U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
Austin announced the package at the Reagan National Defense Forum, a national security talkfest in California he’s attended all four years in office. During his speech, he defended the Biden Pentagon’s legacy, which has in large part been defined by its support for Ukraine.
After Russia’s 2022 invasion, Austin helped form a group of countries that coordinates assistance to Kyiv. America has since sent more than $62 billion in security aid, alongside $57 billion more from its partners.
Such support is coming at increased cost for Russia. Austin said that its military has suffered 700,000 casualties, a number that is accelerating even as Moscow continues to make slight gains in Ukraine’s east.
Multiple European political and defense officials — from Sweden to Lithuania — are with Austin at the forum making the case for continued aid to lawmakers and people who will staff the incoming Trump administration.
Austin referenced the uncertainty around this transition in his remarks. The president-elect has urged an end to the war in Ukraine, though without committing to an outcome.
“We can continue to stand up to the Kremlin, or we can let Putin have his way — and condemn our children and grandchildren to live in a world of chaos and conflict,” Austin said.
“This administration has made its choice, and so has a bipartisan coalition in Congress,” he added. “The next administration must make its own choice.”
Noah Robertson is the Pentagon reporter at Defense News. He previously covered national security for the Christian Science Monitor. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English and government from the College of William & Mary in his hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said he, along with his Iranian and Turkish counterparts, are calling for “an end to hostile activities” in Syria, where opposition fighters have made a rapid advance in a major challenge to President Bashar al-Assad.
Speaking to Al Jazeera at the Doha Forum in the Qatari capital on Saturday, Lavrov said Russia, Iran and Turkiye expressed support for “dialogue between the government and legitimate opposition” in Syria.
The three countries have been involved since 2017 in the so-called Astana Format talks seeking a political settlement in Syria, and their top diplomats – Lavrov, Iran’s Abbas Araghchi and Turkiye’s Hakan Fidan met in a trilateral format on the sidelines of the Doha Forum.
“We called for [an] immediate end to hostile activities. We stated, all of us, that we want the [United Nations] Resolution 2254 to be fully implemented, and for this purpose, called for the dialogue between the government and legitimate opposition,” Lavrov said.
Syria-led process
Resolution 2254 (PDF) outlines a commitment to the “sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity” of Syria and says the only solution to the years-long conflict will be through “an inclusive and Syrian-led political process”.
Asked whether Moscow – a key backer of al-Assad and the Syrian army – believes the Syrian president can hang on to power, Lavrov said he was “not in the business of guessing”.
“We agreed today with Iran and Turkiye to issue a strong call, which I described, and we will be doing some specific steps to make sure that this call is heeded,” he said.
Minister of Foreign Affairs @HakanFidan attended the Astana-format meeting at the 22nd Doha Forum, with his Iranian and Russian counterparts. 🇹🇷🇮🇷🇷🇺 pic.twitter.com/1lA7HIg4XL
Lavrov’s comments came as fighters led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) armed group have made a lightning advance in Syria over days, taking control of key cities, including Aleppo and Hama.
Late on Friday, the rebels said they had reached the edge of Homs, a strategic city linking the capital Damascus to coastal parts of the country where al-Assad enjoys support from the Alawite community.
In a post on Telegram on Saturday afternoon, an opposition commander said the HTS-led group’s forces had begun “operations” inside Homs.
Opposition fighters have also made gains in Deraa and Sweida, in southwestern Syria near the border with Jordan, and taken control of some towns in the Damascus countryside.
‘Much weaker’
Reporting from Kilis, near Turkiye’s border with Syria, Al Jazeera’s Resul Serdar said the Syrian government has lost control of a majority of the country’s territory.
“We are seeing a Syrian government that is much weaker than in 2016, when it was backed strongly by Russia, by Iran, by [Lebanese group] Hezbollah on the ground,” he said.
“Russians are extremely busy in Ukraine. They have withdrawn a majority of their military equipment and personnel from the Khmeimim airbase [in Syria] to Ukraine,” Serdar explained, while Iran and Hezbollah have also been embroiled in fighting against Israel.
“All of these factors have created such a vacuum.”
At Saturday’s Doha Forum, Lavrov said Russia was “absolutely convinced of the inadmissibility to use terrorists like HTS to achieve geopolitical purposes”.
“We’re trying to do everything not to allow terrorists to prevail; even if they say they are no longer terrorists,” he said.
Downplaying fears
Samuel Ramani, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said the Russian foreign minister “was trying to project an image of strength and being in control”.
“He was trying to downplay fears that al-Assad’s regime in Syria is on the imminent brink of collapse, instead talking about how he’s doing all he can to promote the sovereignty of Syria and to try to stabilise the situation,” he told Al Jazeera.
Ramani said the opposition forces’ rapid advance appears to have caught Moscow off-guard.
“They have been watching and they have been spectators just like us to what’s unfolding in Syria, and they don’t really seem to have a very clear game plan to keep al-Assad in power.”
Only weeks after arriving in Russia, around 8,000 North Korean troops have deployed in the western region of Kursk, where they will soon join the fight against Ukraine, senior U.S. officials said Thursday.
These troops have trained with the Russian military on infantry missions — including the use of artillery and drones and clearing trenches. Some have received Russian uniforms and equipment, U.S. officials said.
“We’ve not yet seen these troops deploy into combat against Ukrainian forces, but we would expect that to happen in the coming days,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a press briefing.
Blinken spoke alongside Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and their South Korean counterparts, visiting Washington this week. Just hours before, North Korea conducted its latest intercontinental ballistic missile test, which Japan’s government said marked an advance in Pyongyang’s nuclear program.
The deployment to Kursk will stress Ukraine’s already tense defensive lines. Russia is suffering around 1,250 casualties a day in its offensives across the front, Austin said, but has kept gaining territory, now at a faster pace.
Still, Austin said Ukraine can keep defending the land it seized earlier this year in Kursk and hold steady elsewhere — with such high casualties per day, even 10,000 troops won’t last long, he argued.
“This 10,000 won’t come close to replacing the numbers that the Russians have lost,” Austin said.
Meanwhile, North Korea is also continuing its military support for Russia with equipment, having provided hundreds of thousands of munitions and more than 1,000 missiles during the war, South Korea’s defense minister said in the press conference. In return, he said Wednesday at the Pentagon, North Korea will likely ask for Russian nuclear and military technology.
Given the U.S. has no direct relations with North Korea, and extensive sanctions already imposed on the country, it has little influence to stop Pyongyang’s assistance. Still, senior U.S. officials, including some in the State Department, have spoken with counterparts in China, urging it to intervene, Blinken said.
“They know well the concerns that we have and the expectation is that … they’ll use the influence that they have to work to curb these activities. So, we’ll see if they take action,” Blinken said, without specifying what channel the U.S. used to speak with China’s government.
Noah Robertson is the Pentagon reporter at Defense News. He previously covered national security for the Christian Science Monitor. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English and government from the College of William & Mary in his hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin confirmed that he expects North Korean troops that have deployed to Russia to join the war against Ukraine, a step he warned could expand the conflict.
In the last month, North Korea has sent 10,000 soldiers to eastern Russia, where they began training across three military sites. Around 2,000 of these troops have since moved west, with some receiving Russian uniforms and equipment. A smaller group has already entered the region of Kursk, where Ukrainian forces seized land earlier this fall.
“There’s a good likelihood that these groups will be introduced into combat,” Austin said Wednesday, speaking alongside South Korea’s defense minister, Kim Yong-hyun, who was visiting Washington.
Since publicly confirming last week that North Korea had sent forces into Russia, the Pentagon has warned Pyongyang against joining the nearly three-year war. After decades of chilly relations — including years of Russia trying to limit North Korea’s nuclear program — the two countries have warmed to each other following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
North Korea has helped supply Russia’s military with munitions and other military equipment during the war, and their two leaders have held multiple in-person summits. American officials have grown concerned about what Pyongyang is receiving in return.
That barter likely includes Russia transferring advanced technology on tactical nuclear weapons, reconnaissance satellites, intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear submarines, said Kim, the South Korean defense minister.
“There’s also a high chance that they will try to replace their equipment” that may have grown obsolete, Kim said.
The U.S. does not have direct relations with North Korea and already has a raft of sanctions imposed on the country. Austin said the administration is working with allies on how to respond to the deployment, though he wouldn’t specify how.
“It does have the potential of lengthening the conflict or broadening the conflict if that continues,” Austin said of these troops fighting alongside Russia. If they do, he said, they would be fair targets for Ukrainian soldiers, including with American-provided weapons.
Pentagon and White House officials have argued that the deployment is a sign of “desperation” from Russia, which is suffering immense and accelerating casualties in Ukraine’s east — more than 1,000 per day with more than 600,000 during the whole war.
Austin went further Wednesday, saying the Kremlin is now asking Pyongyang for manpower to avoid another draft. Russia has been able to replace much of its losses through recruitment drives, offering higher pay and pensions, but a mobilization could be politically unpopular.
Russian President Vladimir Putin “doesn’t want to mobilize, because then the people in Russia will begin to understand the extent of his losses, of their losses,” Austin said.
After Russian advances toward the key eastern city of Pokrovsk this fall, Ukraine’s defenses have held. Still, Ukraine is also taking heavy losses and has a much smaller population, making them harder to replace.
Noah Robertson is the Pentagon reporter at Defense News. He previously covered national security for the Christian Science Monitor. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English and government from the College of William & Mary in his hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin confirmed that he expects North Korean troops that have deployed to Russia to join the war against Ukraine, a step he warned could expand the conflict.
In the last month, North Korea has sent 10,000 soldiers to eastern Russia, where they began training across three military sites. Around 2,000 of these troops have since moved west, with some receiving Russian uniforms and equipment. A smaller group has already entered the region of Kursk, where Ukrainian forces seized land earlier this fall.
“There’s a good likelihood that these groups will be introduced into combat,” Austin said Wednesday, speaking alongside South Korea’s defense minister, Kim Yong-hyun, who was visiting Washington.
Since publicly confirming last week that North Korea had sent forces into Russia, the Pentagon has warned Pyongyang against joining the nearly three-year war. After decades of chilly relations — including years of Russia trying to limit North Korea’s nuclear program — the two countries have warmed to each other following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
North Korea has helped supply Russia’s military with munitions and other military equipment during the war, and their two leaders have held multiple in-person summits. American officials have grown concerned about what Pyongyang is receiving in return.
That barter likely includes Russia transferring advanced technology on tactical nuclear weapons, reconnaissance satellites, intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear submarines, said Kim, the South Korean defense minister.
“There’s also a high chance that they will try to replace their equipment” that may have grown obsolete, Kim said.
The U.S. does not have direct relations with North Korea and already has a raft of sanctions imposed on the country. Austin said the administration is working with allies on how to respond to the deployment, though he wouldn’t specify how.
“It does have the potential of lengthening the conflict or broadening the conflict if that continues,” Austin said of these troops fighting alongside Russia. If they do, he said, they would be fair targets for Ukrainian soldiers, including with American-provided weapons.
Pentagon and White House officials have argued that the deployment is a sign of “desperation” from Russia, which is suffering immense and accelerating casualties in Ukraine’s east — more than 1,000 per day with more than 600,000 during the whole war.
Austin went further Wednesday, saying the Kremlin is now asking Pyongyang for manpower to avoid another draft. Russia has been able to replace much of its losses through recruitment drives, offering higher pay and pensions, but a mobilization could be politically unpopular.
Russian President Vladimir Putin “doesn’t want to mobilize, because then the people in Russia will begin to understand the extent of his losses, of their losses,” Austin said.
After Russian advances toward the key eastern city of Pokrovsk this fall, Ukraine’s defenses have held. Still, Ukraine is also taking heavy losses and has a much smaller population, making them harder to replace.
Noah Robertson is the Pentagon reporter at Defense News. He previously covered national security for the Christian Science Monitor. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English and government from the College of William & Mary in his hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia.
U.S. officials confirmed that North Korea has sent a bevy of soldiers to Russia, the first step toward what the Pentagon has said would mark a “dangerous” escalation in the war with Ukraine.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin shared the assessment Wednesday morning while traveling in Rome, becoming the first member of the Biden administration to do so.
The White House later offered more details, saying that around 3,000 North Korean troops sailed to the Russian port of Vladivostok earlier in October and are now training across three military sites in the east.
“What exactly they’re doing will have to be seen,” Austin told a group of traveling press.
South Korean defense and intelligence officials have reported for weeks that Pyongyang intended to send troops to Russia, the latest step in a burgeoning partnership that began after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The Biden administration avoided commenting on the assessment until Wednesday as the government separately confirmed the intelligence.
As Austin’s comment showed, the most immediate theme from American officials was uncertainty. Neither the Pentagon nor the White House said it knew why the soldiers were in Russia, what North Korea was getting in return or whether they would fight in Ukraine.
If that last concern proves true, White House spokesperson John Kirby said, they would be “fair game” for the Ukrainian military.
Russia has suffered huge casualties in recent months while making steady gains in Ukraine’s east, losing more than 1,000 troops a day and surpassing 600,000 total casualties since 2022, American officials have said.
“This is certainly a highly concerning probability: After completing training, these soldiers could travel to western Russia and then engage in combat against the Ukrainian military,” Kirby said, noting that the U.S. has briefed the Ukrainian government on its intelligence.
Austin traveled unannounced to Kyiv earlier this week in his fourth and likely last trip to Ukraine as secretary. While there, he spoke with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and unveiled another $400 million package of military aid, the second such tranche within a week.
North Korea and Russia have had a distant relationship dating back to the end of the Cold War, but have moved closer in the last two years. The two countries’ leaders have met together, including in a rare trip by Kim Jong Un outside his country to visit Vladimir Putin.
U.S. officials cast the news as a sign of “desperation” from Russia, particularly if North Korean troops joined the fight. The description has become familiar for the Biden administration, which didn’t anticipate how the war in Ukraine would realign American adversaries such as Iran, which alongside North Korea has also sent weapons to Russia for use in Ukraine.
North Korea has shipped over 16,500 containers of munitions and related material to Russia since last fall, U.S. and European officials have said.
“This is an indication that [Putin] may be even in more trouble than most people realize. But, again, he went tin cupping early on to get additional weapons and materials from the DPRK and then from Iran. And now he’s making a move to get more people,” Austin said, using the initialism for North Korea’s government.
Noah Robertson is the Pentagon reporter at Defense News. He previously covered national security for the Christian Science Monitor. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English and government from the College of William & Mary in his hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin made an unannounced visit to Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, on Monday, where he met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and unveiled a package of $400 million in security aid — the second such package within a week.
The assistance includes artillery and other munitions, armored vehicles and anti-tank weapons like the shoulder-launched Javelin system.
Austin announced the aid in a meeting with Zelenskyy, who last week outlined a proposal to end the war.
This “victory plan,” as Zelenskyy calls it, would require enduring Western support, particularly NATO membership and the long-term commitment of security aid. The U.S. has so far resisted issuing an immediate invitation for Ukraine to join the alliance, along with another top priority for Kyiv: the permission to fire Western weapons deep into Russian territory.
Despite such support, Zelenskyy’s proposal is a sign of how Ukraine views the state of the war. The Ukrainian president still publicly calls for regaining all territory lost to Russia, going back to the 2014 seizure of Crimea. But as Moscow’s forces steadily advance in eastern Ukraine and reclaim territory lost in Russia’s Kursk province, the future of the war looks increasingly bleak for Kyiv.
Austin’s trip to Kyiv marks his fourth visit to Ukraine and likely his last as secretary of defense. Aiding Ukraine’s defense has been a signature achievement during his tenure. The U.S. has sent Ukraine over $61 billion in security aid in the last two and a half years, and Austin has helped coordinate the assistance of other countries through a monthly forum held in Ramstein, Germany.
Noah Robertson is the Pentagon reporter at Defense News. He previously covered national security for the Christian Science Monitor. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English and government from the College of William & Mary in his hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia.
This year has seen President Vladimir Putin repeatedly brandish the nuclear sword, reminding everyone that Russia has the world’s largest atomic arsenal to try to deter the West from ramping up support for Ukraine.
He ordered his military to hold drills involving battlefield nuclear weapons with ally Belarus.
He announced Russia will start producing ground-based intermediate range missiles that were outlawed by a now-defunct U.S.-Soviet treaty in 1987.
Putin is relying on those thousands of warheads and hundreds of missiles as an enormous doomsday machine to offset NATO’s massive edge in conventional weapons to discourage what he sees as threats to Russia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
A look at Russia’s atomic arsenal and the issues surrounding it:
Russia’s strategic weapons
The Federation of American Scientists estimated this year that Russia has an inventory totaling 5,580 deployed and nondeployed nuclear warheads, while the U.S. has 5,044. Together, that’s about 88% of the world’s nuclear weapons.
Most of these are strategic, or intercontinental-range weapons. Like the U.S., Russia has a nuclear triad of ground-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, long-range bombers and ICBM-armed submarines.
Since Putin came to power in 2000, the Kremlin has worked to upgrade the Soviet-built components of the triad, deploying hundreds of new land-based missiles, commissioning new nuclear submarines and modernizing nuclear-capable bombers. Russia’s effort to revamp its nuclear forces has helped prompt the U.S. to launch a costly modernization of its arsenal.
In this image taken from a video distributed by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service in December 2020, a Russian Tu-160 strategic bomber fires a cruise missile at test targets. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)
Russia has reequipped its land-based strategic missile forces with mobile Yars ICBMs and recently began deploying the heavy, silo-based Sarmat ICBMs — designated “Satan II” missiles in the West — to gradually replace about 40 Soviet-built R-36M missiles. Sarmat has had only one known successful test, and reportedly suffered a massive explosion during an abortive test last month.
The navy commissioned seven new Borei-class atomic-powered submarines, each with 16 Bulava nuclear-tipped missiles, and plans to build five more. They are intended to form the core of the triad’s naval component alongside a few Soviet-era nuclear subs still operating.
Russia still relies on Soviet-built Tu-95 and Tu-160 strategic bombers carrying nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. Moscow has restarted production of the supersonic Tu-160 that was halted after the 1991 Soviet collapse, aiming to build several dozen modernized aircraft with new engines and avionics.
Russia’s nonstrategic nuclear weapons
The U.S. estimates that Russia has between 1,000 and 2,000 nonstrategic, or tactical, nuclear weapons intended for use on the battlefield that typically are far less powerful than the strategic warheads capable of destroying entire cities.
Russia has high-precision ground-launched Iskander missiles with a range of up to 310 miles, which can be fitted with either a conventional or a nuclear warhead.
The air force has a fleet of MiG-31 fighter jets that carry a hypersonic Kinzhal missile, which can be equipped with a nuclear or conventional warhead. Russia has widely used conventional versions of both Iskander and Kinzhal against Ukraine.
As part of the Kremlin’s nuclear messaging, Russia and ally Belarus held drills to train their troops with the battlefield nuclear weapons in May, shortly after Putin began his fifth term.
MAD and Russia’s nuclear doctrine
Moscow and Washington have relied for decades on nuclear deterrence under the concept of mutually assured destruction — MAD for short — based on the assumption that an overwhelming retaliation would discourage either side from launching an attack.
Russia’s nuclear doctrine adopted in 2020 envisaged using such ultimate weapons in response to a nuclear strike or an attack with conventional weapons that threatens “the very existence of the Russian state.” Moscow hawks criticized that document as too vague, urging Putin to toughen it.
Last month, he warned the U.S. and NATO allies that allowing Ukraine to use Western-supplied longer-range weapons for strikes deep inside Russia would put NATO at war with his country.
He reinforced the message by announcing a new version of the nuclear doctrine that considers a conventional attack on Russia by a nonnuclear nation that is supported by a nuclear power to be a joint attack on his country — a clear warning to the U.S. and other allies of Kyiv.
Putin also declared the revised document envisages possible nuclear weapons use in case of a massive air attack, holding the door open to a potential nuclear response to any aerial assault — an ambiguity intended to deter the West.
Changes in the doctrine suggest Russia “is doubling down on its strategy of relying on nuclear weapons for coercive purposes” in the war in Ukraine, said Heather Williams, director of the Project on Nuclear Issues at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in a commentary.
The future for arms control
The 2010 New START U.S.-Russian arms reduction treaty, the last remaining arms control pact between Moscow and Washington that expires in 2026, limits each country to no more than 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers.
In February 2023, Putin suspended Russia’s participation in New START, but vowed that Russia would abide by its limits.
In this photo released by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service in May 2024, Russian troops load an Iskander missile as part of drills to train the military for using tactical nuclear weapons at an undisclosed location in Russia. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP,)
In July, Putin declared Russia will launch production of ground-based intermediate range missiles that were banned under the now-defunct U.S. Soviet INF Treaty. The 1987 pact banned missiles with a range of 310 to 3,410 miles. He said Moscow will respond in kind to the planned deployment of U.S. intermediate-range missiles to Germany, taking steps to “mirror” Washington’s move.
Even as U.S.-Russian tensions soared to their highest point since the Cold War amid fighting in Ukraine, Washington has urged Moscow to resume dialogue on nuclear arms control. Putin rejected the offer, saying such negotiations are meaningless while the U.S. is openly seeking to inflict a strategic defeat to Russia in Ukraine.
Resuming nuclear testing
Russian hawks are calling for a resumption of nuclear tests to demonstrate Moscow’s readiness to use its atomic arsenal and force the West to limit aid for Kyiv.
Putin said Russia could resume testing if the U.S. does so first, a move that would end a global ban in place after the demise of the USSR.
Last month, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the nuclear test range on the Arctic archipelago of Novaya Zemlya is ready to resume tests if the U.S. does so.
Prospective new weapons
In 2018, Putin revealed an array of new weapons, claiming they would render any prospective U.S. missile defenses useless.
They include the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle, capable of flying 27 times faster than the speed of sound and making sharp maneuvers to dodge an enemy’s missile shield. The first such units have already entered service.
Putin also mentioned the nuclear-armed and atomic-powered Poseidon underwater drone, designed to explode near coastlines and cause a radioactive tsunami. Earlier this year, he said Poseidon tests are nearing completion, without giving details.
Also under development is an atomic-powered cruise missile, a concept that dates to the Cold War. But the missile, called the Burevestnik, or Petrel, has raised skepticism among experts, who cite technological obstacles and radiation safety concerns. During tests in 2019, an explosion at a naval range on the White Sea reportedly involving the Burevestnik killed five engineers and two servicemen, and caused a brief spike in radiation.
Putin said this year its development was in the final stages and the military has reportedly built a base for the missiles in the Vologda region of northwestern Russia.
