NATO Begins Nuclear War Games Amid Russia Tensions

Air Force B-52 bomber flies during the annual recurring multinational, maritime-focused NATO exercise BALTOPS 2017 near Ventspils, Latvia, on June 6, 2017. (Ints Kalnins/Reuters)

NATO has begun its week-long annual nuclear exercises in Europe as Russia plans its own nuclear war games around the same time and as tensions simmer over the Russia–Ukraine conflict.

Dubbed “Steadfast Noon,” the NATO training kicked off on Oct. 17 and is “ongoing,” a NATO spokesperson confirmed to The Epoch Times.

Fourteen of NATO’s 30 member countries are taking part in the exercises, which the military alliance said would involve up to 60 aircraft of various kinds, including surveillance and refueling planes as well as fighter jets.

U.S. long-range B-52 bombers will also take part in the maneuvers, which will run until Oct. 30. Training flights will take place over the North Sea, the United Kingdom, and Belgium, which is hosting this year’s exercise.

A different NATO ally hosts the routine exercise each year, with the defensive alliance saying that no live weapons are being used in the war games.

“This exercise helps ensure that the Alliance’s nuclear deterrent remains safe, secure and effective,” NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu said in a statement.

The bulk of the exercises will be held at least 625 miles from borders with Russia, which is planning its own large-scale nuclear war games called “Grom,” which translates as “thunder.”

Like NATO’s maneuvers, Russia’s drills are expected to be routine, although it comes as Moscow’s nuclear rhetoric has intensified.

“We anticipate the exercise will span several days. It’ll include actions within the normal bounds of what Russia has done in the past. It’ll include live missile launches and a deployment of strategic assets,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told CNN.

Amid a counter-offensive by Ukrainian forces at the end of September, Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Western powers of engaging in nuclear blackmail and put his country onto an enhanced wartime footing.

Putin ordered a partial military mobilization and vowed to use “all means available” in the event of a threat against Russian territory and its people, adding that he’s “not bluffing.”

Adding to tensions, recent battlefield setbacks in eastern Ukraine prompted Chechnya’s leader to call for Russia to get tougher and hit Ukraine with a low-yield tactical nuclear strike.

“In my personal opinion, more drastic measures should be taken, right up to the declaration of martial law in the border areas and the use of low-yield nuclear weapons,” Chechen leader and Putin ally Ramzan Kadyrov said in a post on social media.

The Kremlin reacted to Kadyrov’s remarks by calling for a cool-headed approach to the potential use of nuclear weapons, based on Russia’s established military doctrine rather than “emotions.”

Russia’s guidelines allow for the use of nuclear weapons if they—or other weapons of mass destruction—are used against Russia, or if the Russian state faces an existential threat from conventional weapons.

“There can be no other considerations when it comes to this,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on a call with reporters at the beginning of October.

The Kremlin has said explicitly that the four regions of Ukraine that Moscow has annexed also fall under its nuclear umbrella.

Putin said in a televised address announcing more troop mobilization that some high-ranking representatives of Western powers had expressed “the possibility of using nuclear weapons of mass destruction against Russia,” according to a translation of his remarks by The Scotsman.

“If there is a threat to the territorial integrity of our country and for protecting our people, we will certainly use all means available to us,” Putin said. “I’m not bluffing.”

NATO said this year’s nuclear exercises aren’t focused toward any nation in particular or “linked to any current world events.”