(File image) Russia has been conducting nuclear wargames in the North Atlantic (Image: Getty)
Vladimir Putin staged drills for a nuclear war off the North of Britain as a leading Kremlin lieutenant “advocated the use of atomic weapons”. Russia conducted a 16-hour doomsday mission over the neutral waters of the Barents and Norwegian Seas using Tu-160 supersonic strategic bombers.
F-35 fifth-generation fighters from NATO intercepted the Russian intercontinental strategic bombers at a moment of high tension as Vladimir Putin refuses to halt his war in Ukraine. The Norwegian Sea lies directly to the North of Shetland, the UK’s most northerly island group, which lies between Norway and Iceland.
The Russian nuclear bombers were escorted by MiG-31 aircraft, and the Tu-160s practised in-flight refuelling, the defence ministry in Moscow revealed. The Norwegian Air Force was involved in intercepting and tracking the Putin aircraft.
A Russia Tupolev Tu-160 (Image: Getty)
The Tupolev Tu-160, NATO reporting name ‘Blackjack’, is the largest and heaviest combat aircraft ever to enter operational service. It can carry up to 45 ton of weapons internally, including both nuclear and conventional long-range cruise missiles.
The war game was staged as it was reported that Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov advocated for the use of nuclear weapons at a closed meeting of the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy.
Lavrov spoke there, and at the very end of his speech, according to an eyewitness, diplomatically avoided some questions about whether [Russia] should use nuclear weapons, but said: ‘Well, I would still use them,’” according to political analyst Andrey Kolesnikov.
Kolesnikov said Lavrov, 76, Russian foreign minister for 22 years, was from a “generation that grew up with Soviet ideas drummed into their heads: that there are no winners in a nuclear war, that escalation inevitably leads to the destruction of humanity, and that peace is the world.
NATO ships on exercise off Norway (Image: Getty)
“How can people from this generation believe that nuclear weapons can be used in a limited manner?
“Well, frankly, for me, it’s another mental and psychological mystery.”
Lavrov said earlier this month that nuclear war was possible if the West refused to kowtow to Putin’s demands for ending the war in Ukraine – namely, a huge loss of territory.
“This state of affairs poses serious threats to global security,” he said.
“A direct confrontation between NATO and Russia could rapidly escalate into an exchange of nuclear strikes, with catastrophic consequences.”
Overnight, Ukraine again pounded Russian positions in and around annexed Crimea, with oil terminals and military facilities ablaze.
A resurgent Kyiv believes it is weakening the Russian grip on the Black Sea peninsula, where the summer tourist season has been virtually cancelled, with chronic petrol and diesel shortages and regular blackouts.
Russia was forced to close the £3 billion Crimean Bridge amid fears of a strike on the crossing.
