Russia Initiates Drills Involving Yars Nuke-Capable ICBMs

The Russian defense ministry announced Monday its armed forces have begun planned exercises involving the deployment of Yars intercontinental ballistic missiles, RIA news agency is reporting.

Yars ICBM regiments in the Sverdlovsk and Altai regions are being deployed to field positions during command-staff exercises. The Yars can be transported on trucks or positioned in silos.

State media on Monday featured a photograph of one of the missiles being transported in its mobile form, but has given few other details on the drills or their scope.

Russia has over the course of the 3+ year long Ukraine war held several tactical nuclear exercises, while threats and counter-threats continue to fly amid growing Western involvement.

The current ICBM drills are a continued demonstration of Russia's strategic capabilities, and muscle-flexing aimed at the Western allies.

It seems Moscow began increasing the readiness of its tactical forces especially last year. That's when Biden issued the greenlight for Ukraine to conduct long-range strikes inside Russia using Western weapons. Putin at the time decried that this risks making Ukraine a 'global war'.

For example, President Putin said last November, "The use of such weapons by the enemy cannot affect the course of the situation in the Special Military Operation zone." He also said it was a big mistake for the US to pull out of the the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in 2019.

Putin has also long highlighted that Kiev is now in possession of US F-16s, and that of course NATO F-16s are capable of carry tactical nuclear weapons. Thus Russia has previously said it will have no choice but to assume each F-16 could be armed with nukes, highlighting how dangerous the situation is becoming.