Russia says it rehearsed delivering a massive retaliatory nuclear strike

MOSCOW — Russia has successfully tested its ability to deliver a massive retaliatory nuclear strike by land, sea and air, a Kremlin statement said on Wednesday.

"Practical launches of ballistic and cruise missiles took place during the training," the statement said.

State TV showed Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu talking to Putin about the exercise.

The same Kremlin statement said a Yars intercontinental ballistic missile had been fired from a test site in Russia's far east, that a nuclear-powered submarine had launched a ballistic missile from the Barents Sea, and that Tu-95MS long-range bombers had test-fired air-launched cruise missiles.

The exercise comes at a time when Russia is locked in what it casts as an existential standoff with the West over Ukraine and as it revokes its ratification of a landmark nuclear testing treaty to bring itself into line with the United States. — Reuters