Moscow. February 19. INTERFAX-AVN - During exercises with strategic offensive forces, the infliction of guaranteed defeat to the enemy has been worked out, the chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov said.
"The main purpose of the exercise is to work out the actions of strategic offensive forces to inflict a guaranteed defeat on the enemy," Gerasimov informed Russian President Vladimir Putin.
According to him, the exercises are two-stage.
"At the first stage, the issue of conducting military operations with the use of weapons of increased potential danger will be worked out, and at the second stage, the issue of authorizing and massive use of the strategic offensive forces of the Russian Federation in a retaliatory strike," Gerasimov said.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that "the forces and means of the Aerospace Forces, the Southern Military District, the Strategic Missile Forces, the Northern and Black Sea Fleets are involved in the exercise."
The exercises started on Saturday under the leadership of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Putin and President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko watched the exercises from the situation center in the Kremlin.
The Russian military on Saturday published footage of exercises of the strategic deterrence forces.
The footage shows the launches of hypersonic missiles "Zircon" and "Dagger", cruise missiles "Caliber", intercontinental missile "Yars" and the departure of strategic bombers-missile carriers Tu-95MS to launch a cruise missile.
The military also showed footage of the launch of a cruise missile of the Iskander-M tactical missile system.
Another video shows a training launch of the Sineva ballistic missile from the Karelia nuclear submarine from the Barents Sea at the Kura test site on the Kamchatka Peninsula.
The Kremlin reported on the planned nature of the exercises.
"The exercise of the strategic deterrence forces was planned earlier, during which the readiness of military command bodies, launch combat crews, crews of warships and strategic missile carriers to perform their tasks, as well as the reliability of weapons of strategic nuclear and non-nuclear forces was checked," the Kremlin said in a statement.
